For some time, both practitioners and scholars have been arguing that coaching should play a stronger and more central role to achieve successful business outcomes. However, when looking to inspire leaders to gain competence in the skills of coaching, ill-founded assumptions are made. Including, but not limited to, the very definition of leadership and the very nature of coaching when embedded into leadership (termed in this chapter, leaders-who-coach). The research described in this chapter looks into these practices to proffer 15 dimensions of leaders-who-coach, drawing on multiple sources which seek to ameliorate the shortfalls of previous research in this area. Finally, the chapter includes a discussion on the less than perfect nature of the approach taken due to the philosophical misalignments between the described realities of leadership and coaching and the ontological and epistemological challenges of research. The primary aim of this chapter is to respond to the growing organizational calls for more leaders to have the skills of coaching.
TopIntroduction
If you believe, as many seem to, that we are living in a time of unprecedented change, and, that organizations need to adapt and become more agile, then other related concepts need to be similarly re-evaluated. Foremost among them is that of the role of leader which needs to be respecified for these unparalleled challenges.
In re-specifying the constructs of leader and leadership, we argue that the skills of coaching play a critical role. Both practitioners and scholars have been arguing that coaching should play a stronger and more central role to achieve successful business outcomes for some time (Ibarra & Schoular, 2019). However, whilst probably unintentional, notions of coaching have been too powerfully led by those with a vested interest in the idea, namely the many regional and global professional bodies representing the professional coach.
Whether by accident or design this has inspired considerable research on coaching in the workplace which draws on a model akin to the professional coach, whether external or internal parties, who support leadership but are not part of the organization’s activities of leadership. Most often the research directly equates leaders seeking to imitate coaching processes. As a result, when looking to inspire leaders to gain competence in the skills of coaching, ill-founded assumptions are made. First that these coaching skills are often seen as directly transferable from the processes and practices of the professional or independent coach, and secondly that these skills will be deployed in 1-2-1 ‘coaching conversations’ by a line-manager or supervisor with their deputies/teams.
Organizational scholars began to advance new ideas of leadership as it became clear that individualized, heroic forms of leading were not reliably successful (Collinson et al., 2017). Especially in cases where contexts or challenges were complex, and effective responses necessarily rely on the wisdom of the many not the hubris of the few (Barker, 2001; Collinson & Tourish, 2015; Grint, 2010). Thus leadership studies have moved from individualized to pluralized and distributed forms (Gronn, 2002; Ospina et al., 2020). Due to its alignment with this progressive logic, and its usefulness in linking the constructs of leadership and coaching in this modern, dynamic and complex world, we position this chapter within a relatively new leadership field, called Leadership as Practice (LAP). This allows us to explore the practices of leaders which represent both elements of leadership and elements of coaching, thereby enabling clarity as to our phenomenon of interest; that is, the “leader-who-coaches”.
Analysis of the extant literature in related fields to that of the leader-who-coaches demonstrates several inconsistent approaches none of which provide a solid foundation on which to ground programmes aimed at understanding and creating leaders-who-coach. In response to these challenges, this chapter seeks to take us into new territory. Our research into the practices of interest and taking a phenomenological approach, leads us to proffer 15 dimensions of leaders-who-coach, drawing on multiple sources which seeks to ameliorate the shortfalls of previous research in this area. We draw upon several sources, i) the LAP literature, ii) the manager-as-coach literature, iii) insights from professional coaching bodies and related literature, iv) findings from our own research, and v) our personal insights as coaching professionals and coaching skills trainers, with career histories working at senior levels in global large complex organizations.
In combination we offer tentative definitions for each of the proposed 15 dimensions of leaders-who-coach and explore how these can manifest in practice where each may interact in non-linear ways. Finally, we discuss the less than perfect nature of the approach we have taken due to the philosophical misalignments between the described realities of LAP and the ontological and epistemological challenges of research.