Introduction:

The Corporate arena is highly competitive which is the cause of change and obsolescence at an individual, team and organisation level at an unprecedented speed. External forces which are pushing organisations to think differently. This is reflected in the way of doing business since the covid pandemic, the demands around the climate crisis, social responsibility pressures through ESG reporting and technological disruption.

At a workplace level, employees and teams are affected by mergers, acquisitions, re-orientation and division. They are under constant pressure to map their offerings and portfolio of company products and services to access and satisfy customer needs while balancing the business needs as they arise. Employee demands have also changed since the covid pandemic. Demands around flexible working practices, coupled with a skills shortage and multiple career development choices are just a few challenges which organisations face in their quest to hire and retain talented employees.

The expectation of high performance from individuals to lead themselves and teams, set organisational direction, communicate effectively across all levels of an organisation, both vertically and with their peers. Leadership and management style of their people needs to change to build engagement and motivation and is viewed as an important competitive advantage in organisations.

Employees expect more support to accompany higher accountability standards. The more bespoke and individualised the support, the better the commitment and trust between individuals and teams. The expectation of helpful reciprocal behaviours, better engagement and discretionary effort all contribute towards better performance at work and more innovative thinking.

Diversity of workforce brings diversity of ideas, however access to these ideas won’t happen automatically. Organisations that do not demonstrate commitment to supporting and influencing individuals in their personal development and build an inclusive working culture will struggle to attract new employees and build new skills in their business.

More and more organisations are understanding the value of adopting coaching in their everyday management and leadership styles because it supports the kind of performance expected by their employees

Considerations and effects of using a coaching approach in the workplace and the influence of corporate culture.

Discourse and conversations define corporate culture because it is a medium for individuals and teams to build trust, connect with others and share thoughts and ideas. Discourse influences behaviour and the right kind of discourse can influence the right kind of behaviour.

The Push-Pull Model of influence below shows different ways of influencing conversation. The Push side on the left is about appealing to logic and is an ‘instructional’ approach. The Pull side on the right is a motivational approach and is about influencing through a ‘conversational’ approach. The third approach is an avoidant approach, which although may sound negative, has its value in specific circumstances e.g burnout or fatigue situations.

Leaders in productive corporate cultures adapt their conversational styles to all three approaches depending on the situations they find themselves in. However that may not always be the case. Some leaders tend to ‘hang out’ more in one part of this model than the other. In corporate cultures where a ‘mandated’ approach, the old style of ‘management by compliance’ is the norm, ownership of goals and outcomes is not shared throughout the organisation with power being concentrated at the top and goals are met by allocating tasks and delegation in a top-down fashion.

The lack of motivational conversations creates a climate where taking initiative is not appreciated and autonomy of decision-making is limited throughout the organisation. Empowering conversations are motivational conversations that encourage open dialogue, accountability and ownership of outcomes. The focus is on an individual’s agency to own a challenge and find their own solution and outcome.

A disconnect approach is an avoidant conversational approach which is adopted when a person feels emotionally drained or fatigued and it is a place to go when people need time-out or time to rest and recuperate. Sometimes this is an excellent space for innovation and Google adopts this approach to give their employees time to do things that they like, separate from the business agenda of the day.

All three approaches can be used with a wide variety of stakeholders in the business whether it is between co-workers, between managers and employees, between leaders and their employees and between employees with their customers and suppliers.

The coaching approach assumes that the person who is being coached (coachee) is the expert at their world and their solution and the coach (who asks the questions) is a critical friend and mirror who is present with the coachee at the time.

However coaching is not a passive approach. It works across all three conversational approaches. As an example, take the coaching GROW model shown below:

 

The coaching approach is a goal focussed approach that helps a person or team move from where they are to where they want to be quicker than if they were to do it alone. The GROW model ( Goal, Reality, Options and Will- or Way Forward) is just one of the models that can be used during a coaching approach. Lets look at each section and analyse them in the context of the Push Pull Model.

In the Goal phase, the coach could be both exploratory as well as directive, as the objective is for the coachee to choose a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound). This requires the coach to adopt both a pull- approach to understand the complexity of the coachee’s challenge and then adopt a push approach to choose a goal for the session. This helps the coachee to understand tradeoff’s and set the scope of their discussion. It also means that there could be other goals that could be explored in future sessions.

In the Reality phase, the coach is in an active listening mode, repeating and mirroring language patterns, checking their understanding of what is being said and gaining more information about the dynamics and stakeholders as narrated by the coachee. This is a divergent pull approach and if the coach senses any emotional barriers then they explore that as part of the pull approach. It is also a space where the coach can build motivation in the coachee through prior successes and use of their strengths. If fatigue sets in during the conversation, then the coach might agree with the coachee to use the disconnect conversational agenda to change topic and defocus for a while.

In the Options phase, the coachee is helped by the coach to explore all possible options which requires a divergent approach, thinking broadly and using a motivational pull approach. Prompting a number of options creates choice for the coachee and greater sense of control.

In the Will or Way Forward stage, the coach moves into a mandated space, helping the coachee to choose an option by exploring criteria for achievability, potential barriers and solutions and challenging the coachee to make these actions time-bound. This is again a more push approach where convergence and tradeoffs are needed and decision-making is an important part.

Hence using a coaching approach helps influence forward-action, active decision-making and ownership of outcomes by individuals. When these approaches are practiced throughout an organisation, it creates employees who appreciate strengths in themselves and others and build autonomy in their work which creates better engagement.

A coaching approach can be used in situations of mentoring, facilitation or consulting, because forward- thinking and non-judgemental conversational approach builds trust. The active listening involved provides space for everyone to be heard as individuals verbalise their thoughts in a safe space. It helps people to gain better objectivity around the other persons perceptions and perspectives and understand them more as a person with capabilities and strengths.

A coaching approach requires protected time and space and cannot be hurried. In high -risk situations of urgency where time is of the essence and the cost of not following instructions is high, e.g emergency clinical situations or defence situations where quick actions along the lines of command saves lives, then a coaching approach would not be helpful. These situations require people to be allocated tasks quickly and work reactively as a co-ordinated team tapping into their training and prior experience. When the situation urgency subsides, then the leader can choose to switch styles to a more coaching approach, so that individuals can feel like they have regained control of their autonomy.

Organisations have come to the realisation that the taller the hierarchical structure the more difficult it is to react to changing conditions. Like turning a large oil tanker around, it is less agile and less prepared to react favorable to quick changes in a highly competitive environment.

A coaching approach can be used to suppport a high performing culture during restructuring to a more flatter hierarchical structure especially during fragmentation, mergers and acquisitions. Changing to a flatter organisational structure doesn’t imply that everyone is suddenly treated as peers, although that could be the intention on paper. Many large organisations have restructured to such a flat structure from a command-and-control power dynamic and still carry legacy from the same power structures from which they came. Like an iceberg where nobody really knows how large problems spread below the surface, these invisible power structures hide legacy issues, resentment in relationships, dysfunctional behaviours and perhaps a blame culture. People cannot feel like ‘peers’ just because they are restructured to.

The success of a distributed leadership and management style in flatter organisations is attributed to teams feeling empowered to own issues and outcomes and own the strategic intent of the organisation. Working together in teams needs collaboration and that happens through improved team communication, feeling motivated to share innovative ideas in problem-solving and a feeling of belonging. A coaching approach brought by an external coach could be the catalyst to transition teams to a more collaborative culture.

Coaching approaches involve different coaching styles. When it comes to adopting a coaching style, hierarchical structures may benefit more from a directive style of coaching and a more open culture may benefit from a more exploratory style of coaching. Even in a dysfunctional culture, a coach could leverage existing cultural strengths to support and reinforce coaching outcomes.

Even with different styles in coaching, the equality in the coaching relationship balances the power sharing in a conversational transaction. Introduce DE&I here.

Even when the coach is an employee’s manager, a coaching approach shifts focus from ‘task compliance’ to accessing employee ‘intrinsic motivation’. This approach is about the coachee’s personal accountability. By the coachee owning both the problem and the autonomy and choice of the solution, the coachee takes responsibility for how the outcome is realised in practice.

Through reflection during the coaching session, the coachee develops reflective skills, a self-developmental process which they can apply to themselves in future and with others. Here is an example of a client conversation I had:

Client: I am thinking I may adopt a coaching questioning style with my new team. As I am the newbie head of department, its best that I can define my style of communication early on, so they know the kind of person I am.

Me: Sounds good. What difference might that make?

Client: It will make a difference to me. From what I have heard from the team so far, they are at war with each other, not sharing comms and media work which each team creates. By using a coaching approach, I can own the vision of how I want them to work and keep myself away from being too operational; a lesson learnt from my previous role. I think trying to do everyone’s job became too much for me in the previous role and in the end I didn’t have time to think about the politics of what was going on; so redundancy came as a shock.

Creating a coaching culture in a corporate culture where it doesn’t exist is not easy. The coach needs to develop an understanding of interpreting the organisational relational dynamics to enable the coach to navigate them effectively and ensure that coaching relationships are built on trust, respect, and equality. Coaches can help individuals navigate power structures, address challenges, and drive positive change within the organizational culture. The status quo may operate in silo’s which may resist change. Any whiff of change might give rise to conflict, fear of losing control and suspicion and the coach needs to be ready to deploy techniques and the right communication to manage these situations.

Resistance to change is one of the major considerations when strategizing a move to a coaching culture and the coach should try an understand how this shows up in terms of behaviour. Formal and informal grievances, engagement surveys, what the organisation is undergoing at the time all provide evidence around the corporate culture which the coach will be coming into. The coach needs to tactfully ask probing questions to get to as deep a level as possible to unearth hidden issues below the surface of the cultural iceberg. Like Ernest Hemingway describes in his writing about reading the hidden messaging between the lines, a coach’s role is to read between the lines of what is being said and build a whole picture of what and where the issues are and how challenging they are perceived to be.

(Reference: Handout- Coaching High Performance teams – The Coaching Academy)

Messaging around change needs to be led by the top and needs to be supported by the right level of motivation and development opportunities to incentivise the cultural transition.

Individual 1-2-1 coaching itself (internal or external) and leadership development programmes could be the vehicle to develop a growth mindset. When new leadership behaviours receive organisational and team support, it allows for people to have agency for their own actions and embed new learnings and behaviours into the culture. Cascading these behaviours helps to reduce defensive behaviours of a blame culture. Failures start to be treated as opportunities for improvement rather than punishment.

 

Applications of coaching

In a corporate environment, coaching can support employees from the time they join an organisation to the time they retire.

1. External Recruitment and First 100 days: A coaching style of questioning can be used during external recruitment interviews as it involves active listening, open questioning and allows a more human-centred approach to the process. This helps avoid becoming a tick box exercise of experience and skills, could destress the interview process and uncover more about ways of thinking, perceiving and story-telling.
2. Career Development: When coaching is used with or without psychometrics like DISC and 360-Degree Feedback as an evidence base, its helps uncover the employee’s motivations at a deeper level.

Coaching around strengths could provide an indication of their suitability for opportunities to grow in their career. It could help to signpost employees to exploring secondments and job-shadowing to gain more understanding around their comfort with certain roles.

3. Managing change: When managing change, coaching conversations and models can provide a methodology to manage change across specific areas in the change process. Coaching can be used during contracting, when adopting change models like PROSCI ADKAR, Kotter 8 Steps to Change or the Change Curve, providing acceptance for both a near and far perspective, changing embedded habits and to manage emotions of resistance. This helps to encourage a positive outlook of the future where individuals could feel supported through the change process. Coaching questioning helps individuals discover a sense of control in their own context of change and transition in their own way and at their own pace.

 

(Cited: Handout- Coaching through Change – The Coaching Academy)

 

4. Leadership development: Adopting a coaching approach in experiential learning programmes for leadership development can provide a platform for developing new leaderships skills in self-leadership as well as leading others. When 1-2-1 coaching as well as leadership coaching sessions segway between facilitated workshops, the reflective space to address current barriers and challenges helps to embed the learnings from the programme into participants daily job role.
5. Team performance: Performance management is an important part of team and individual accountability. Gone are the days of permanent employment and jobs-for-life. With portfolio careers, temporary multi-disciplinary teams with specific skills and virtual matrix teams spread globally, it is now the norm for teams to come together and be disbanded in a short time. High performance teams communicate better across the five stages of Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning (Tuckman Model of XXXXXXXXX) where a coaching approach can be used to move from a more directed space (Forming) to a more collaborative space (Performing) and are more likely to have more empowered individuals who achieve better

 

Coaching creates the space for psychological safety around everyone’s voice being heard and facilitated coaching approaches led by a coach helps individuals become more accepting of different perspectives allowing innovative ideas and insights to surface. This builds higher levels of trust and helps with collaborative decision-making.

6. Conflict Management: A more empathetic approach to mediating conflicts when seeking resolution is where a coaching approach can be useful. By adopting the coaching rules of engagement around a non-judgemental approach, a psychologically safe space to speak can be created. Using the D x V x F > R model in conflict management and exploring new perspectives, coaching could provide the space for dissatisfactions to be aired, perspectives could be understood and challenged and options for a resolution can be discussed as the way forward.

 

Client: How can I make him (the boss) stop lying in meetings in front of everyone? It happens every time in our update meetings.

Me: How do you feel when that happens? (D)

Client: I feel that my position of sales head is undermined. I try to explain to him that ‘these are the facts’, and he still continues to lie and argue in front of everyone. The meeting then becomes all about our arguments rather than getting everyone on board? Later on, I beat myself up about becoming stressed about it.

Me: What do you think is going on?

Client: He wants to undermine me, show me up in front of my team.

Me: What should ideally happen? (V)

Client: It is an update meeting for an hour. I want to be more collaborative so everyone feels like they can speak up and ask questions, but it gets dominated by this one person and I can’t be rude as he is the top boss.

Me: So, what could you do to prevent this from happening? (F)

Client: I could set out new meeting rules at the start especially around interruptions. Perhaps spend some time verbally telling all attendees the rules so everyone knows what is expected.

Me: And what will you do if the top boss starts an argument? (F)

Client: I will interrupt and tell him that we can take the discussion offline and then I will continue with the meeting.

From a Team/Organisations/ individual perspective and on a coach

Coaching creates the psychological safety for individuals to share thoughts feelings and feel like they have a voice in a safe non-judgemental space. Feel listened to and that someone is objective in their responses. Helps individuals to explore beyond their original default belief system and bring objectivity to situations and gain new perspectives. This helps to release their feelings of anxiety which creates stuckness and explore limiting beliefs which hold them back in thriving in their environment.

In teams, a coaching approach can help bring transparency, an appreciation and acceptance of other people’s viewpoints, improves communication and helps the team work towards a common goal. It helps individuals in teams to identify their own hidden agendas and unsatisfied motivations and creates the space for dialogue to happen. It helps bring people to a place where they feel they have choices and options and by actioning certain choices can help them align to the vision and strategy of the team.

While there are positive effects, often bringing in a coach for the first time can have a negative effect. In an organisational culture of blame and dysfunctionality, a new style dialogic approach by the coach may seem unfamiliar and suspicious. Individuals may suspect that it masks an organisational hidden-agenda, and the coach could be looked on with suspicion with some coachees interpreting coaching as punishment.

Corporate culture influences the way employees perceive and respond to coaching interventions. By comprehending the cultural context, a coach can tailor their coaching approach to align with the organization’s values, beliefs, and practices. This contextualization enhances the relevance and applicability of the coaching process, making it more effective and impactful.

 

Differences between corporate and life coaching:

There are a lot of similarities between Corporate and Executive coaching and Personal (Life) Coaching.

1. Focus on Goals: Both these types of coaching are focussed on goals as the fundamental basis for development. It is all about helping individual identify their goals both wider and session goals to help them achieve specific outcomes and changes in their lives and careers.
2. Focus on a supportive relationship: The process of coaching is to provide a supportive and non-judgmental talking space with clients, providing a psychologically safe space to explore challenges, develop skills, and gain insights.
3. Development and Personal Growth orientation: Both kinds of coaching lead to personal growth and development by helping individuals increase self-awareness, develop new perspectives, access their strengths, enhance their skills, and overcome limiting beliefs.

When it comes to differences, there are less clear differentiation when it comes to the process of coaching but differs in focus, the context, the number of stakeholders, accountability and scope.

1. Context and Focus in terms of Stakeholders:

Corporate coaching focusses on enhancing performance, leadership skills and professional development within a business or corporate context. These could be top-level executives, senior managers who manage others or technical personnel. It involves both coaching of individuals and teams, sometimes whole functional departments and even business units located in different parts of the world. It may concentrate on leadership development, strategic thinking, decision-making, and addressing challenges specific in an organisational context.

 

Personal or life coaching of individuals happens in a much broader scope, addressing all aspects of an individual’s life such as personal relationships, career, wellness, personal growth, and work-life balance. Life coaches work with clients outside of the corporate context.

 

2. Accountability to objectives:
   Corporate and Executive coaching is usually tied into organisational and leadership goals. There could be specific metrics tied into organisational performance indicators which could be barometers to measure development of their leadership individuals. Through executive coaching, individuals can develop their own leadership style, change behavior, improve decision-making, and seek feedback from stakeholders. These are measured by the executive’s ability to demonstrate improved leadership behaviours.
   In personal (life) coaching success is personally subjective to the individual. Depending on their level of satisfaction through the coaching process, they can judge the effectiveness of the coaching for them in terms of their outcomes and personal growth.

 

3. Scope:
   When structured coaching programmes are commissioned and contracted at an organisational level, it is likely to form part of a learning and development programme involving multiple coaches to support various individuals and teams. The coaching process may be standardized to ensure consistency of approach by the different coaches.
   The scope may involve one-on-one coaching and team coaching, tailored to the specific needs and challenges of individual executives and teams. It often follows a customized coaching plan and may incorporate specific assessments across the organisation like DISC, MBTI, 360 Feedback, and Strategic Goal Setting.
   The personal (life) coaching process is flexible and adaptable to an individual’s unique circumstances and goals. The coach is flexible to choose techniques, exercises, and models to facilitate personal growth and self-discovery of their individual clients.

 

Pros and cons of having the Manager as Coach.

More and more organisations are training their people-managers in coaching skills. Having a manager act as a coach can have both positive and negative aspects.

Positives:

1. 
   Contextual Familiarity: Managers who act as coaches have a deep understanding of the employees they coach, the team dynamics, and the organizational barriers and challenges. This can lead to more relevant coaching conversations and targeted interventions.2. Access to Inside information and Resources: Managers, as coaches, have direct access to valuable inside knowledge, feedback, and resources that could help an individual’s performance and development. This can enhance the coaching experience and ensure alignment with the organization’s goals.3. Accountability and Implementation: Managers, as coaches, can directly contribute to supporting the implementation of action plans, setting performance goals, and ensuring the level of accountability during coaching. They can increase their accessibility as coaches, monitor progress, provide ongoing feedback, and support the integration of new behaviours into daily work.

   Negatives:

2. 
   Power Dynamics and Trust: The inherent power dynamics between a manager and their direct reports can create challenges in establishing trust at a deeper level with employees feeling that their managers’ agenda needs to be met. Employees may hesitate to share their challenges and gaps openly for fear of negative consequences, limiting the effectiveness of the coaching process.2. Bias: Managers can bring their own perspectives and biases into the coaching relationship based on their history of working with the employee or previous employees. This may limit the objectivity and unbiased support that an external coach might provide.3. Limited Skillset: Many technical people are promoted to manager levels due to their technical competence. While managers possess expertise in their field, they may not have specific training or skills in coaching methodologies. This could result in a less effective coaching process compared to that of a trained professional coach.

   There are certain issues which could affect the coaching process when a manager coaches individuals:

3. Confidentiality: When a manager acts as a coach, it is difficult to maintain confidentiality. Confidentiality is one of the main premises of psychological safety in a coaching session and the line between a coach role and manager role may be blurred.
4. Availability and Time Constraints: Managers usually have multiple responsibilities and limited time for coaching. This may result in less consistent or dedicated coaching sessions, impacting the continuity and effectiveness of the coaching process.

Proper training for managers to develop effective coaching skills and overcome potential biases is important for developing managers as coaches. The organisation needs to consider carefully when appointing a manager to the role of coach especially when the organisational culture, the time availability and the skills are not supportive of developing internal coaches. Sometimes there could be very difficult personalities in a business which require specialised remedial coaching, and this could be beyond the ability of internal managers to serve as effective coaches.

 

For coaching to be effective from commissioning to delivery of the coaching contract, the coach needs to have a wide range of skills and attributes. These help to create a positive and productive coaching experience, enable coaches to build strong relationships, facilitate growth and development, support individuals and teams in achieving their goals, and contribute to the overall success of the organization.

Ability to contract effectively: For coaching to be effective, it is important for all parties involved, the coach, the commissioner and the client to be aware of the three different levels of coaching agreements.

The first is the coaching programme agreement. The coach needs to have the ability to describe in detail how the whole coaching programme will unfold from beginning to end to the commissioner and/or the coachee . This includes covering expectations around scheduling, use of online or face-to-face channels, what information can be shared with the commissioner during the course of the programme and level of confidentiality. Any agendas or barriers need to be considered and the coaching scope agreed with the coachee and commissioner during this stage. The coach will need to demonstrate how they will meet the needs and expectations of all parties and what they cannot assure as part of the coaching. For example, this may include updating the commissioner on how many sessions have been completed but does not include any details from the sessions due to confidentiality rules.

The second level goes into more detail covering the overall Coaching Plan and Goals Agreement. This can be used where the programme commissioner and the coachee are the same person. The coach and the coachee need to discuss and identify the general coaching goals and the plan to achieve them. Through effective questioning and active listening, the coach needs to help the coachee identify clear goals, how progress will be monitored and tracked and identify concrete actions to achieve those goals. This agreement becomes the foundation of the entire coaching programme, becomes part of a written agreement and provides a clear direction for the coaching process.

The third level agreement is around individual session goals agreed between the coach and the coachee. In every session, the coach and the coachee need to work together to set specific goals and objectives. These goals need to be closely related to the overall goals of the coaching programme and the coach needs to be able to be sensitive to the coachee’s emotional needs yet be able to challenge them back on track if the coach feels that the focus is straying too far from their objectives. These session goals should also align with the needs and changes that have occurred since the previous session and this will maintain focus and provide a framework for evaluating progress.

Coachee: (talking about an employee she manages) “…and then A (employee) started accusing me of not standing up for her. I am her friend, but I also manage J (another employee) as well. Then A started off on C (a colleague) as well. I think C would really benefit from coaching with you. C confides a lot in me, and she comes to me with her issues. She can’t handle her emotions, you see. Even when it comes to planning the museum show, C is never on time….”

Me: (interrupts): Sorry to interrupt but so I understand, you are saying that you manage both employees A and J. That sounds like you are being asked to choose. However, could you tell me how C is relevant to your session goal for today?

Coachee: She’s not. I just went off on a tangent because it occurred to me that C would benefit from coaching because I find talking about these things very useful.

Me: Hold onto that thought and if it is important to you, could we address that at the end of this session, if that’s OK with you?

Coachee: Yes, that’s OK, so where was I? yes..back to A and J and my session goal…..

Discussing and referring to the coaching agreements when needed are an integral part of a coaching programme. The three types of agreements discussed above help coaches to organize, plan, and execute coaching programs more effectively.

Credibility: Many corporate organisations require coaches to be credible and hence the coach might be expected to demonstrate prior professional experience in coaching, provide references, have experience leading people in the corporate environment in a senior level role and be a professionally qualified accredited coach with a leading membership coaching organisation e.g. the ACA, ICF. Some organisations specifically ask for formal practitioner qualifications around psychometrics especially if the commissioner has a preferred psychometric they want to use for the programme.

Business Acumen: Coaches operating in a corporate setting need to possess a level of business acumen. This involves curiosity and understanding the organization’s industry, market, strategy, and key aspects of its operations. By having knowledge about the business context, coaches can better tailor their coaching proposal, interventions, offer relevant insights, and support clients/commissioners in addressing specific challenges or opportunities.

Flexibility and Adaptability: In a dynamic corporate environment, coaches need to be flexible and adaptable in their approach both during contracting as well as delivery. They must be able to adjust their coaching style, techniques, and strategies to meet the specific needs of each individual or team. This flexibility allows coaches to work effectively with diverse personalities, cultures, and levels of experience within the organization both during commissioning and coaching clients.

Goal-Oriented Focus: Effective coaches in a corporate setting have a strong focus on goal setting. They work with individuals or teams to establish clear, specific, and measurable goals that align with organizational objectives. This goal-oriented focus provides a clear direction, ensures accountability and alignment with corporate goals and enables individuals to track their progress and success. It also brings a sense of purpose and motivation for coaching participants in the corporate environment.

Confidentiality and Ethics: Maintaining confidentiality and adhering to ethical standards are crucial for coaches in any setting, including the corporate environment. Coaches must demonstrate integrity, respect privacy, and ensure the confidentiality of client information. This could be through agreeing GDPR rules and rules of engagement and challenge during the sessions. This establishes trust, fosters open communication, and ensures the ethical and professional practice of coaching. There should also be choices for the client to go to other coaches if the client-coach relationship falls down at any point and cannot be retrieved.

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence: Empathy, along with emotional intelligence, is essential for building trust, understanding others’ emotions and perspectives, and fostering an inclusive and supportive coaching environment. Coaches in a corporate setting need to demonstrate empathy by genuinely understanding the experiences, challenges, and emotions of their clients. This helps create a safe and comfortable space for individuals to openly express themselves and encourages collaboration and effective coaching outcomes.

Powerful Questioning: Powerful questioning involves asking open-ended and thought-provoking questions that promote reflection, self-discovery, and critical thinking. By asking relevant and challenging questions, coaches in a corporate environment encourage individuals to explore new perspectives, clarify goals, and uncover potential solutions. Powerful questioning also stimulates creativity, facilitates learning, and fosters increased self-awareness.

Active Listening: Active listening involves paying full attention to the client, being present with the client, clarifying what they are hearing and responding thoughtfully. In a corporate setting, active listening allows coaches to make sense of information, understand the client’s needs, perspectives, and challenges, and build a trusting relationship. It also demonstrates respect, patience and creates a safe space for open communication and exploration of sometimes contrary perspectives.

Ending the coaching programme: This is a key stage of good coaching practice. At the end of the last session, the coach should be able to offer ongoing support to the coachee in the form of signposting to helpful resources, the support for further sessions or even a new coach if needed. As part of well-being of the coachee, the coach needs to have the ability to sense and ask if the coachee requires additional support and make all effort to provide it to the coachee.

Me: We are at session 6 which is our last session and I just wanted to know how you feel at the end of this session. Its been quite a roller coaster ride.

Coachee: My redundancy couldn’t have come at a worse time. I have found these sessions really useful to work through all the pressures at work but being made redundant seems to have brought me to an abrupt end. It suddenly feels very lonely. I would like more coaching support to help me find a job. Would you be able to help coach me through a few more sessions.

Me: That should be OK. Let’s set up a time to chat and see where you are. You don’t have to feel alone. I know a few professional career coaches, so feel free to ask me if you would like to be introduced to them.

Continuous Learning and Self-Reflection: To be effective in a corporate environment, a coach needs to engage in continuous learning and self-reflection. By seeking supervision from qualified supervisors and seeking ongoing professional development opportunities, they stay updated on industry trends, new areas of development (e.g Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience) and reflect on enhancing their own coaching offering and practice. This commitment to personal growth keeps coach’s skills up to date, helps maintain high professional standards, and expose their clients to the best coaching experience.

Corporate coaching often utilizes various toolkits and models to enhance effectiveness and provide structure to the coaching process. The selection and use of these toolkits and models vary based on the specific coaching context, client needs, and coach’s expertise. Effective coaches are skilled in selecting and adapting tools to the individual or organizational situation, ensuring they align with coaching goals and objectives.

1. GROW Model: The GROW Model (Goal, Reality, Options, Way Forward) is widely used in coaching to help individuals clarify their goals, explore the current reality, identify options, and determine a way forward. It provides a structured framework for coaching conversations and goal setting.

2. Self-analysis tools like SWOT and Career Wheel: The SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is applied to assess an individual’s or team’s current state. It helps identify strengths and weaknesses while considering external opportunities and threats. The Career Wheel is an internal check-in assessment of an individual’s current career satisfaction levels based on factors like purpose, skills, work-life balance, professional relationships, money, growth and strengths. Both these tools used at the beginning with clients and commissioners provides a development framework of satisfaction, identifying gaps and areas which the client can choose to set goals around during coaching sessions and action planning.

3. 360-Degree Feedback: 360-Degree Feedback involves gathering feedback from multiple sources, including peers, direct reports, superiors, and other stakeholders. Coaches use this feedback to provide individuals with a comprehensive view of their strengths, areas for improvement, and development opportunities. This is important in organisational leadership development where reputation matters and can act as the trigger to modify behaviour and culture.

4. Emotional Intelligence (EI) Assessment: Emotional Intelligence Assessments, such as the EQ-i 2.0 or the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i), measure an individual’s emotional intelligence competencies. These assessments help coaches and individuals understand their emotional strengths in situations and areas for development, enhancing self-awareness and interpersonal effectiveness. This is a key leadership skill in relationship management and becomes especially important when diversity and inclusion competency gaps are being addressed in leaders and managers.

5. DISC Assessment: The DISC personality assessment, based on the DISC model, measures an individual’s behavioral styles. It categorizes individuals into four primary styles: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. Coaches use DISC assessments to facilitate understanding of communication preferences, work styles, and team dynamics. It is also used to detect tension between the ‘real’ and ‘mask’ profiles and coach around these perceptions.

Me: Is it OK if I ask you a question from your DISC report?

Client: Yes.

Me: The graph on page 5 shows a significant boost between the Influencing levels you naturally have and those that you demonstrate at work. What is going on there?

Client: My boss tells me that I need to up my game. However, I am an introspective person. I like to first listen, gather all the information, hear what everyone has to say and then make decisions later. My boss tells me that I need to speak up and argue to influence in the moment.

Me: How do you feel when that happens?

6. Action Planning and Goal Setting: Coaches use various tools and techniques to facilitate effective action planning and goal setting. These may include SMART Goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound), creating action plans with specific tasks and deadlines, and ensuring goals are aligned with organizational objectives. This helps to set individual and team accountability from the start.

7. Values and Purpose Exploration: Coaches often help individuals explore their core values and purpose. Tools like values clarification exercises or Motivational Maps help in aligning personal values and purpose with career goals, increasing motivation, and guiding decision-making.

Me: How did you find the Values exercise?

Client: It was really difficult narrowing down my Values to 10 key values. But I thought hard and prioritised them.

Me: Could you tell me how you demonstrated those values in the previous roles you had?

Motivational Maps measure state, unlike personality assessments and hence might also be used as an indicative measuring tool to measure levels of motivation in individuals and teams before and after a set of coaching sessions.

8. Strengths-Based Approaches: While it is easy for the client to focus on their gaps or weaknesses, a coach can leverage an appreciative, strengths-based approach using models like Clifton Strengths Assessment or Wingfinder Strengths, to identify and develop an individual’s unique strengths. As strengths are a demonstration of peoples values in their everyday work, coaching clients and organisations to focus on their strengths helps them apply their strengths in different ways to build and increase engagement and performance.

Client: I don’t think I am innovative enough to go for a creative role.

Me: Your Wingfinder Strengths mentions here that you are adventurous. Tell me the time when you did something different that someone would normally not do.

Client: I guess leaving my job to go around the world with my sister could be classed as different. But that was because I was getting frustrated in my previous job that my manager was not talking to me about my career.

Me: Did you enjoy the trip?

Client: Very much. I got to see people and cultures I would not have done had I refused. I come from a family of accountants, and they advised me against leaving my job.

Me: Thinking back to this trip, what strengths did you use at the time?

Client: I guess it was my determination to do something different, making it happen and taking a risk.

Me: Does that not sound like the qualities that innovative people have?

Client: Now that you put it that way, yes. I always thought innovative was about inventing clever things like the Iphone or something.

Coaching in Corporate arena is useful as it deals with the complexity of the human side of business and culture. No amount of top-down strategy will work if people are not on board. Coaching provides the ideal communication platform to help change mindsets one conversation at a time.