EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS

Executive leadership coaching in business

It has often been observed that many leaders of organisations of all sizes and types are recruited or internally promoted for their technical expertise and fail because of their behaviour competencies (and people relationship competencies in particular). Unfortunately, Behavioural competencies are not inborn skills, but nurtured or learned abilities. Behavioural competencies significantly affect any leader's or manager's ability to perform well, get along with others, communicate flexibly, quickly adapt to changing situations, and other issues.

Where many technical competencies are often on the job or in a formal training environment) behavioural competencies (self-awareness, self-management, emotional intelligence etc) are typically learned through dealing with unusual or unexpected experiences (in work or in life). This means learning to cope through higher levels of both self-awareness and awareness about others (and how people can think and act quite differently to the leader in many situations).

Executive leadership coaching in business is best done by offering managers new and different challenges that they would not normally face in the day-to-day running of their particular operation. This means that individuals have to “get out of their comfort zone” and try to cope when issues may be vague, ambiguous or confused. It is in these moments that the greatest number of development “ahas” occur.

 
Executive coaching programs

There are many executive coaching programs that are available in the external marketplace and that can be designed for  managers to undertake internally within an organisation. However, one factor that should be central to any executive coaching program should be ensuring that all managers know how to ask the right questions. That is, an excellent coach is more distinguished by the quality of questions that he or she asks than any other factor.

Although there are a number of different ideas about how coaches should ask questions, essentially there are five main coaching questioning methods or approaches which you should consider when you are designing an executive coaching program (or you are about to coach someone directly for that matter). Each of the five has a different application depending on why the coaching is taking place. However, you can potentially use all the methods over the course of one coaching session. The five coaching question-asking methods are:

• role modelling (demonstrating and showing) “Can you do it like this?”
• instructing (telling or lecturing) “Can you get me 20% more effort?”
• performance/target setting (challenging or stretching) “Can you achieve your personal best?”
• critical thinking/creative problem solving (joint issue identification and resolution) “Can you identify another solution to get from A to B?”
• enthusiastic motivation/inspiration (strong encouragement and support) “Can you feel your momentum building here?”

Each of these questioning methods takes time and effort to hone properly (and learn to use in the particular words of a given coach). However, once fully appreciated, the positive difference in outcomes is palpable.

Coaching leadership style

Whenever we are engaged in coaching executives, it is important to remember that any leader can relate to people in a number of very different ways. This means that all leaders can choose to relate in a range of ways or to adopt his or her leadership style in response to the idea and the reaction of the people around him or her.

The table below offers a summary of each of  leadership style models, with a range of alternative responses to the right. This table summarises the five ways of relating to change associated with different leadership models, intentions and views of circumstances

Leadership Style Model	Ways of relating	Intention	View of circumstances	Innovation Group link
RESISTING	“Soldier”	SURVIVE	FIXED-DETERMINISTIC	LAGGARDS
COPING	“Facilitator”	THRIVE	FIXED BUT NOT DETERMINISTIC	LATE MAJORITY
RESPONDING	“Parent/Teacher”	BE RESPONSIBLE	FIXED BUT CHOICE OF HOW TO RELATE	EARLY MAJORITY
CHOOSING	“Coach”	BE SERENE	NOT FIXED. COMMITMENT TO ACCEPT	EARLY ADOPTERS
BRINGING FORTH	“Charismatic Guide”	CREATE NEW CIRCUMSTANCES	NOT FIXED. COMMITMENT TO CREATE NEW CIRCUMSTANCES	PIONEERS

Another useful model for the coach to bear in mind is shown below:

Leadership Styles/Roles	Behaviour/Actions
Charismatic The leader is a role model for innovation	Communicating with vision. The leader widely and effectively informs individuals about the idea or innovation direction Energising employees. The leader generates innovative activity and excitement in the organisation Accelerating innovation processes. The leader speeds up the innovative activity and effort in the organisation
Instrumental The leader uses management methods to systematically create innovation structures and processes in the organisation	Structuring innovation processes. The leader creates organisational systems and processes that produce innovative products and services Controlling innovation processes. The leader establishes and uses goals, standards and measures for innovative organisational systems and processes Rewarding innovators. The leader recognises and/or rewards persons who contribute to the innovative organisational systems and processes.
Strategic The leader uses the hierarchical position to create innovation and processes in the organisation	Using power to innovate. The leader uses his or her hierarchical position to authorise innovation activity and processes Committing individuals to innovation. The leader assigns creative/innovative tasks and responsibilities to team members Enabling individuals to be innovation. The leader assigns creative/innovative competencies to team members
Relational The leader co-innovates with other managers and team members	Empowering innovators. The leader suggests, supports and allows team members to develop, generate and pursue innovative ideas Cooperating with innovative individuals. The leader works together with highly innovative people to develop and realise their innovative ideas Developing additional leadership. The leader teaches others how to become a innovation leader

 

Once again any coaching intervention is assisted greatly by appreciating which of these style is most in evidence and then talking about its appropriateness in future circumstances or situations.

Building teams and coaching leadership towards motivational skills

Well before any attempt has been made to build or motivate a given team through the leadership coaching process, according to the well-established model developed by Bruce Tuckman some year ago, it is critical to understand the stages through which a typical team will travel over time. Even though Tuckman’s ideas are well over fifty years old now, a considerable amount of subsequent research has been done on the stages of team growth. This research suggests that teams go through several distinct yet subtle phases as they mature in performance and cohesiveness over time. These different phases may be travelled quickly or slowly. Tuckman’s model suggests four stages. These are:

• Forming
• Storming
• Norming
• Performing

Let’s look at each of these in a little more detail.

Forming

When any team comes together, or forms, its members typically explore the boundaries of acceptable behaviour within the group. This is usually an exciting, if somewhat nervous, time for team members. Emotions such as anticipation, optimism, pride and hope mix with emotions such as suspicion, fear and anxiety – all at the same time.

This “emotional” phase in the team’s life is characterised by a number of conceptual
debates about the overall task of the group and how the team should behave and act.
Discussions may also take place about what data might need to be gathered and what problems need to be solved. The team rarely moves forward very quickly in its forming phase and will be happy to live with distractions and considerable ambiguity in trying to work out its best course of action.

Of course, forming is fundamentally about understanding other people and how best we can relate together in the future (particularly to work as a team). This “getting to know you” stage is not easy and always takes a certain amount of time and adjustment.

Storming

As soon as the team starts to become frustrated with lack of progress, or with spending a little too much time in talking and not enough on doing, it moves to the storming stage.

Storming is a difficult phase for a team. Having tested the water several times with their toes, all team members usually now immerse themselves and try to swim. However, the skills needed to swim may not yet be fully developed and the water is often deeper and the tide stronger than they thought. As a result, a certain amount of panic can often set in at this stage. The team can be too immature to collaborate and the group often operates less as a team than it did in the forming “honeymoon” phase. Argument and disagreement can abound, and individuals can become defensive and question the goals of the team.

Despite all this difficulty, a major benefit to arise out of the storming phase is that team members usually start to better understand one another. This is a critical platform upon which a successful team can be established (especially with thr right kind of coaching intervention).

Norming

Although the storming stage may last for a relatively long time, there comes a point when the team realises that it must move forward positively if it is to make progress towards its key goals. This is called the norming phase.

Here, the team typically works out the basic operational ground-rules and individual roles within the group. In doing this, the ability to survive successfully in the water, using the same analogy, becomes significantly greater and the emotional turmoil often reduces dramatically.

Although the team maintains much of its critical questioning of the way forward, the new ground-rules usually make this criticism constructive and positive. At this stage team friendship and confidence usually grow, and the team develops a sense of identity. Most importantly, the team has typically won the time and energy to pursue its goals and objectives as a group.

Despite this positive benefit, the norming phase can also see individual team members “pairing off” into “cliques” of common interest. This is not a problem in itself, but the team needs to ensure that competitive “factional” groups do not detract from overall cohesiveness. The leader and coach therefore has a critical mediation role to play at this stage.

Performing

Many teams never get to the performing phase, either falling apart or halting at the
hurdles of one of the previous phases. Alternatively, the team may have broken up along the way for other reasons, like changes in circumstances or cancelled projects. However, for those teams that do make it the performing phase is the “pay off” time for the group. Relationships have usually stabilised and group problem solving is now typically crisp and effective. Strengths and weaknesses of the team are also often now well understood and co-operation occurs relatively naturally according to needs.

In the performing phase the team is typically a cohesive, well-oiled unit capable of
achieving high levels of output and growth. At this point most individuals accept that the team can achieve much more than the combined contributions of all the individual inputs within it – this is the proverbial “champion team”. Once again, the leader and coach can be important at this stage but more in a steering and mentoring capacity perhaps.

Note: In recent years, a fifth stage in the team development process has been
suggested. This is the “mourning” phase. This occurs after the performing phase
as the work of a team comes to an end (naturally or on an enforced basis). At this
stage, team members “mourn” the loss of identity and relationships before they find
a new team and start to move through the whole process again.

The four phases of team development are not intended to be a rigid model to be slavishly lollowed when looking to lead or coach a team. Many teams will follow the model very closely, while others will achieve high performance almost without effort. Although the time frames may vary, for the majority of teams these phases do occur and it is useful to realise that they are perfectly normal aspects of human behaviour when leading or coaching any kind of team. Nonetheless, the journey will always feel like a roller coaster ride of highs and lows. The “trick” is to understand the nature of the roller coaster and where you happen to be on it at any point in time. Once you are on it you might not be able to get off easily, but you can at least accept this and, with a little patience, the ride can be an exhilarating one for all concerned.

For a coach of course, making the ongoing effort to identify or assess the stage at which the team might be can be an extremely useful investment of time. This is simply because the roles to be played at each stage are often quite different.