What is the coaching leadership style?
by Admin
Posted on 18-09-2023 04:33 pm
When many executives contemplate needing a coach, they realize the benefit of a hybrid approach.
Most leaders recognize they need support in their business management and leadership style. This awareness is important when selecting a coach. When charged with finding a coach, executives are often advised to find the right “fit. ” part of this fit includes the coach’s “experience. ” while a coaching certificate (like those offered through the international coaching federation ) can be valuable, consider these additional pieces of criteria:
personal, firsthand business experiences
the right education level, professional credentials, and/or subject matter expertise
experience in leadership coaching and in coaching executives
track record for success.
Now that you know the benefits of leadership coaching, let’s talk about the different types. Within the world of leadership coaching, you’ve got two main styles to choose from: business coaching and executive coaching.
Coaching leadership style examples
The executive coaching style, as the name implies, is geared specifically toward executive leadership.
A leadership coach with this style works one-on-one with organizational individuals to improve their leadership and management skills. Coaches usually come from outside organizations and work with the individual for a specified time or number of sessions. Most companies use executive coaching for people who are new to a leadership position. Doing so seems to pay off—one study found that executive coaching has an roi of 788 percent. Like executive coaching, strategic coaching is intended for top-level organizational executives. Strategic coaching seeks to improve leadership development of senior leaders by focusing on long-term goals and how best to reach them.
When personal or executive coaching emerged in the workplace in the late 80s and early 90s, managers were asked to manage the performance and satisfaction of their team members. Management training emphasized communication, interpersonal skills and coaching style. There was little professional coaching since coaching was almost always for the c-suite and coaches were only seen as a sounding board for top executives. Below the executive leadership, many did use coaching for performance improvement; some saw it as soft and fluffy talking while others likened it to the high performance coaching in sports so it became a status symbol for talent and high potentials.
Coaching leadership compared to other leadership styles
Organizational performance measures a company’s output compared to its objectives. Leadership coaching can improve a business’s performance by sharpening skills and behaviors. In addition, coaches finesse collaborative solution-building and develop success resources. Coaches teach leaders how to set qualitative and quantitative goals. Goal setting helps strategically move teams forward. For instance, objective and critical results (okrs) help teams set better goals. Okrs can be at the company, department, or individual levels. Business coaching prioritizes producing desired outcomes. It is ideal when traditional approaches stall the workforce’s performance. These programs create institutional changes that have long-term results. Behavioral coaching shifts leaders’ mindsets to transform their behavioral patterns.
To understand what coaching itself might be, you can read more at my main website https://crossways. Com. Au/coaching/coaching-explained/. On this website however, we are talking about business or executive coaching. This of course typically includes leaders. The distinction is most clear when compared to coaching that helps an individual for example, to achieve a personal goal such as happiness, work-life balance, financial security or wealth, or better relationships. Of course, there are several exceptions to this distinction and in my own coaching practice for instance, there is often a continuum between business and personal life and it is sometimes difficult to separate the two.
Build shared vision – given the constant disruption and change at work, ideally, coaching leadership is an ideal default leadership style. Having said that, this leadership style is particularly well suited for environments where people do not have the knowledge or skills to build a shared vision. Change management – coaching leadership is a great way to align personal goals to align with organizational development goals. As such, it is well-suited for change management and also for developing shared accountability and success across global and hybrid teams. Overcome people-related issues – it is an effective leadership strategy to overcome people-related issues that can be cultural or emerge due to lack of time.
A traditional management style like “command and control” is one where leaders know best and have all the answers (or feel like they ought to). A coaching management style creates a collaboration between the leader and team members that empowers all. Making this shift puts people in the driving seat of their own performance. To see this in action, watch below our all-time favourite vintage video of sir john whitmore , co-founder of performance consultants and co-creator of the grow model, demonstrating the impact of a coaching leadership style in contrast to a traditional management style.