What is coaching? 

 

DEVELOR and coaching

As a special form of supervision, coaching means training (cf. sports), and accompaniment.

Coaching stands for training because just as the sports coach prepares sportspeople for a match, the coach in its present meaning also prepares the top expert for critical situations full of challenges. It also means accompaniment as the manager can count on the coach as a professional friend in new, unexpected, and seemingly difficult situations.

A properly qualified – in many cases already overqualified – manager/leader  must often requires up-to-date professional knowledge in decision-making or conflict situations or if he simply has to report to foreign owners, perhaps even confront them.

An important feature of coaching is that it should be a form of work communicated, and accepted by management, aimed at rendering good experts even better. That’s because coaching is not punishment but a prize.

Coaching means supporting a process driven by a purpose, a result or a solution for the sake of a leader or a team, taking into account restrictions, and interactions in the working environment.

What is the process of coaching?

In the event of individual leadership coaching the meetings focus on a topical/relevant problem, which is expressed in exact words, then questions and feedback follow aimed at finding possible ways out. Emphasis is placed on strengths, and improvement reserves rather than on deficiencies. In this working method crisis situations are just the point of departure of constructive change and development.

Coaching is a longer process that begins with situation assessment, needs assessment, and begins with the coach’s specific suggestion. Then a series of meetings follow where subjects of conversations move from the current situation, the specific working situation to new objectives, and to the problem that needs to be resolved.

Team coaching is different in that co-workers in similar situations can profit a great deal from each others´ experiences.

What subjects may be dealt with in coaching?

  • Communication problems (How shall I help co-workers, and customers better understand the aims of the organization?)
  • Decision making situations
  • Conflict situations
  • The problems of relationship management. (How should the organization and the team of professionals survive a given crisis situation?)
  • Why is an expert dissatisfied; is he aware of his available options, and his own limitations?
  • What is an operating optimum? (an achievement that you cannot exceed in a given organization, in a given position, or in a given period, but one that if you cannot reach you should be dissatisfied)
  • Handling stress situations. (That may be the greatest obstacle for a manager: to remain creative, and make good decisions even under stress.)
  • Coaching provides space and potential to innovative thinking, to resources hidden in an individual and in a group of people, and to creative renewal.


Leadership coaching

"Those not working on themselves will always be a victim of circumstances."(Weor)

Research tends to prove that it is no longer enough for a leader to be qualified, and ´smart´. Only those can achieve lasting and spectacular success who can manage their own personality, and business, and market relationships.

Leadership coaching is training as for sports people, accompaniment, and development. The model based on a European approach, represented by Develor is a special working version of supervision.

It is the development of the leader/professional character based on self-knowledge, but always in a context of specific competences and given managerial responsibilities. Leadership coaching is moving along a pathway driven by a purpose, a result, and a solution, where emphasis is placed on strengths and the mobilization of developmental reserves.

Leadership coaching is more than education, it is no direct consulting, and less than/different from therapy.

Its key words are motivation, responsibility of development, and trust.

When and for what purposes do we recommend coaching?

  • To develop leadership competences
  • If the leader’s work has become too much of a routine, and needs a change, or he needs a new style, new instruments, and wants to test them/try them within the protected arrangement of leadership coaching
  • To handle communicational problems, e.g.:
    • Communicating the aims of the organization
    • Disturbances of internal communication
    • Obstacles of multicultural communication
    • The effectiveness of communication at meetings
    • Mapping and fine-tuning customer communication by customized tools
    • The pit-falls of providing feedback, and achieving motivational effect
  • Problems of performance, and tasks management
  • Problems of relationship management
  • Crisis and conflict management
  • Decision making situations
  • Expected consequences of newly introduced measures, and preventions
  • Introducing or testing new methods, new motivational tools
  • To train assertiveness, taking the initiative, and the ability to confront
  • To be able to manage change
  • To handle stress
  • Emotional intelligence – skills development
  • To analyze the perspectives of one’s own leadership career routes (to prepare the career map)
  • To re-think a new vision
  • For the internal workshops related to renewal, and innovative solutions
  • If the manager feels alone, and would like to talk through the problems, and seeks to ask the ´unaskable´ questions

The role of the coach

The coach is the ´professional friend´, the external “unbiased eye”, who fully accepts, and supports his partner, i.e. the leader so that the leader’s effectiveness, and thereby the organization’s performance should increase.

The coach offers his full attention without judging or qualifying, listens, asks questions, holds up the mirror, and responds. He encourages work related to self-knowledge, comes up with new points of view, shows the way, confirms, and is a sincere helper in testing exercises. He motivates toward a new style of management.

He does not provide specific, direct advice, but inspires the manager to seek, and find new ways that ´suit him´.

His aim is to create a leadership character and operational model (in the course of a joint process of creation) that is motivating, and attractive to follow even for the team.

How does leadership coaching work?

Leadership coaching is a longer process.

The coaching sessions deal with specific cases: the leader brings the specific working situation, e.g. they review leadership behavior and its consequences with the coach, then compare it with expectations from a performance point of view, and from the aspect of both the customer, and the client. The leader is given tasks to complete for the next session based on a coaching plan and brings back the relevant experience to the next coaching session.

What result may be expected from the coaching process?

The leader:

  • Arrives at new understandings, and discovers new avenues
  • Acquires a more conscious and recognized managerial self-knowledge
  • He sees his self-confidence growing, which will make him more firm, but also more flexible
  • He will become more confident, his power to take the initiative will grow, and he will be more tolerant to conflict, and will be better at confrontation
  • His representative powers will improve, and he will be more attractive and more assertive at multicultural talks where there is a great deal at stake
  • He will be able to try new aspects, and plan their consequences as well
  • He will be able to steadily feature an outstanding performance without stress as he will have learnt how to respond to his own functioning/operation, and capitalize on the benefits of inner questions, and dialogue

The time frame of leadership coaching

  • The usual time frame of coaching is at least 7, but ideally 10-12 meetings
  • One meeting consists of two sessions (one session takes 60 minutes)
  • Meetings are scheduled two, three, or four weeks apart according to the needs of the manager and the company