Leadership Turn

The Boom In Leadership Coaching

by Jonathan Farrington on May 1st, 2007

The signs are that the boom in leadership coaching will continue. A recent survey that I read, which polled H. R. professionals from Europe, America, Australia and Asia found that 88% of the respondents were planning to make more use of professional coaching. A little more than half of the respondents had introduced the practice in the past 18 months.

Like our clients, 70% of those polled said that coaching has an edge over conventional development techniques and they would choose it to change the behaviour and performance of senior people.

Coaching versus Traditional Development Programmes:

People may learn a great deal on development courses, but when they return to the workplace they often have difficulty integrating what they have learnt into their day-to-day work. Quite often, what they may have learnt simply slips from their minds.

I believe that between 50% and 70% of an organisation’s climate, and hence its effectiveness, can be traced to management style. Effective leaders create a favourable working environment that boosts performance. This is where coaching comes into its own. Leadership is a set of skills, competences and attitudes that individuals can develop through practice and by reflecting on their own actions and the impact this can have on others.
 
Most leadership programmes are too general to provide opportunities for such intensive personalised work. Coaching, by contrast, enables individuals to gain insight into their own motives, interests and concerns. These link explicitly to the challenges they face in their leadership or management roles.

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POSTED IN: Leadership Skills, Uncategorized