Coaching World magazine recently talked about the trend among Human Resource and Learning and Development professionals to shift the discussion about coaching from coaching interventions to creating a coaching culture. The topic is hot for internal and external coaches – it’s not about should we use coaching but rather how can we use coaching and also grow the organization’s capacity to coach?
The first question is always what is a coaching culture? What would be different for the organization if they were to have a coaching culture versus the current culture?
When I do Executive Coaching I coach Executives on what they need to be better leaders whether it’s engaging the hearts and not just the heads of their employees, being more authentic in who they are, increasing their emotional intelligence, being vulnerable and strong and understanding their impact of others. As we talk about these concepts – I mostly question; they mostly think and respond – and they get clarity on what leadership is for them. Once they have their personal clarity about the concept I then take them to another perspective – what process did I use to coach them? What could they learn about a coaching style? How could they use what we just did with their team? So once they’ve had the personal and individual learning from the Executive Coaching, I have them look at the work from an outside perspective of what could they learn and use from the process.
Often the Executives learn about open questions – starting with ‘what’ not why (defensive) or how (doing), and seeking to clarify the goal first to ensure common understanding. Coaching has the possibility of supporting individuals personally and organizations culturally.
