A633.7.4.RB
- How Do Coaches Help?
To be an executive coach, it is necessary to know that
clients are the first and best experts capable of solving their own problems
and achieving their own ambitions; that is precisely the main reason why
clients are motivated to call on a coach. When clients bring important issues
to a coach, often they already made a complete inventory of their personal or
professional issues and identified all possible (known) options. Clients have
already tried working out their issues alone, and have not succeeded.
Indeed employees of all levels will
call on external help in order to better guide them in a desired direction. For
the lowest level employee their own peers typically employ these coaching
methods frequently. If there is a further need for coaching/mentoring then a
good majority of the time a manager or any form of leadership steps in and
helps get the ball rolling again. The method of deliver is just as important as
the content of the session, and must be managed very carefully. Tanner (2018)
states that "the manager must avoid the urge to tell
the employee what he must do to solve his performance issues. Instead, she
should engage him in “owning the solution” for his performance issues." Hopefully
this tactic allows for buy-in by the subordinate and helps self-motivate them
in order to fast-track back to normal performance.
Subordinate
coaching and mentoring is usually not such a tricky venture because it's
something that's expected to happen. Now when it comes to those in leadership
positions, especially at a higher level, the problems they are trying to
address can be very complicated. As stated above, these individuals usually
have thought through their issues many times, and when trying to deal with
complexity, the simple direction usually doesn't seem very plausible initially because
it can be seem as almost elementary. Higher-level leaders view their own
leadership as needing to have great vision, and their actions need to be highly
regarded. This is all fine, but these pressures tend to lead individuals to over
think things, thus creating the conundrum they think they are currently in. The
job of the coach is to allow them to understand and accept an answer that the already
know.
Obolensky
claims that of all the attractors mentioned, coaching requires a good amount of
skill and is probably the most powerful (2014, figure 10). It's all about being
able to the fill in the gaps between constantly being involved, and allowing a
devolved strategy to work. This is where proper coaching can help mentor
individuals in the allowing themselves to continually self-lead and essentially
self-motivate. Obolensky (2014) claims that " the
most effective one for Complex Adaptive Leadership is the GROW model coupled
with a questioning technique which makes use of a mix of open/closed and
suggestive/non-suggestive questions." This construct can help the coacher
guide the individual through all available options for the them to
self-generate alternatives. All you are doing is essentially opening a series
of pathway options that the one being coach already has. Hopefully this series
of doorway opening will arrange several options together creating a better
vision for the way forward. If the individual who created the picture can
really see it then boom, buy-in.
References
Alumw. (n.d.). Chaos
theory and strange attractors. Retrieved from http://www.alunw.freeuk.com/chaos.html
Obolensky, M. N. (2014). Complex Adaptive
Leadership, 2nd Edition. [Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from
https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781472447937/
Tanner, R. (2018). Motivation - steps for coaching difficult
employees. Retrieved from https://managementisajourney.com/motivation-7-steps-for-coaching-difficult-employees/
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