Holistic Coaching in Higher Education: A Key to Individual and Organizational Success

Introduction

Traditional leadership models of the past promote the notion that successful leaders must be experts in their professional domain; the idea emphasizes leaders must have all the answers to all the problems team members cannot solve independently. This leadership paradigm produces a command and control style of leadership that new leaders have replicated over the years (Ibarra & Scoular, 2019). Although several leadership styles have emerged to address the pitfalls of authoritarian leadership, many of them still perpetuate the subtle yet powerful idea that leaders hold their position because they possess all knowledge. However, rapid, constant, and disruptive change is the reality across all industry spectrums, requiring leaders to reconsider past leadership strategies. This chapter proposes leaders operate in more complex and challenging contexts than ever before. If 21st-century leaders wish to stay innovative, relevant, and compelling, this enduring command and control leadership style must make way for a new way of leading. Leaders and teams will benefit from taking on a new perspective, one that does not require the leader to have all the answers or hold all the know-how but collectively participate in the process of learning, knowing, and creating solutions. Industry leaders would do well to incorporate a leadership model that includes holistic coaching to ensure each team member feels included, understood, and fully supported.

In a world experiencing flux and uncertainty, thriving, successful leaders must cultivate a capacity for learning and demonstrate a desire for learning well beyond functional areas of expertise, broadening their knowledge to the full spectrum of their field. A coaching relationship can offer new learning methods for both the leader and the individual they are coaching. If leaders see themselves as coaches, they can support the ongoing development of creativity, energy, talent, and the desire to learn from other people. Consequently, holistic coaching allows leaders to “give support and guidance rather than instructions, and employees learn how to adapt to constantly changing environments in ways that unleash fresh energy, innovation, and commitment” (Ibarra & Scoular, 2019, p. 36).

However, the term coach or coaching can often stir up mixed memories from youth or young adulthood. These memories may be personal or vicarious, positive, negative, or a combination of these descriptions. Individuals might remember experiences filled with hardline expectations, yelling, being pushed beyond their limits, using punishment, and even public shame as motivators. Or, people might recall times when a coach provided nuanced insight, inspiration, encouragement, and recognition for their potential. Still, these experiences were always about individual achievement, performance-based rankings, and winning. Winning, being first, and being the best, was the aim of any effort; anything less was considered some measure of failure. Coaching or being coached seems foremost to be about evaluating and improving personal performance. This emphasis often comes with a traditional and sometimes narrow definition of success, a daunting proposition for coaches and those being coached. Even coaches can fall into the trap of operating from old ways of coaching that mirror traditional leadership. Therefore, this book chapter will explore the coaching relationship and holistic coaching strategies for individual and organizational success that emphasize: 1.) coach's knowledge and skill, 2.) vulnerability, 3.) the importance of care and empathy in coaching, 4.) building trust and quieting ego, and 5) coaching and collaboration. Although the authors use student affairs as the premise of this chapter, anyone in higher education interested in developing successful leadership strategies from a holistic coaching perspective will benefit from this chapter.