You’ve decided to invest in coaching for a leader on your team to better prepare them for the C-suite role they crave. However, some executive coaching engagements don’t reach their optimal impact because the organizational context may not fully support the person being coached. To optimize the impact of coaching, sponsoring executives must actively and thoughtfully support the process. Here are five big ideas for getting the most out of the coaching you are sponsoring for someone on your team.
1. Clarify Coaching Goals Up Front
Coaching is a confidential partnership between a coachee and a coach to help them define goals and then act on them to achieve the stated outcomes within a specific time. For coaching to be effective, the coachee, their immediate manager, and the coach must be aligned on the coaching goals. As the coachee’s immediate manager, your role in facilitating this alignment is critical. It’s not always easy, especially when most executives who receive coaching are already high performers who usually seek incremental changes, not major reconfiguration of their leadership styles. However, this alignment is critical. Brenda Harrington, a leadership coach and founder of Adaptive Leadership Strategies, LLC, shared a situation in which a coachee had trouble getting his manager to share, in a plainspoken way, how she hoped the coaching would help her team members. The coaching client was left to guess and spent excessive time second-guessing his action plan, delaying the start of the active coaching phase.
Action Tip: Ask yourself, “What is the key behavior change or development I want to see from my leadership team member?” Discuss these expectations with the coachee and the coach. At this level, telling leaders precisely what you want for them gets more challenging. However, honesty at this point will enhance formal coaching and strengthen your connection with your colleague.
2. Influence But Don’t Control The Coaching Agenda
Although you must approve the high-level coaching goals, be careful not to disempower the client by minimizing their voice. According to Carrie Williams, a professional and life coach, coachees work harder when they believe in the goals of their action plans. That means leaders should listen to understand why their colleague thinks a particular goal matters rather than telling the coachee what they “should do.” Jessica Stone, PhD, an executive coach and licensed psychologist, says that “pushing an agenda onto a direct report can result in the loss of important talent within a department, and often a company.” She had this experience when a coachee resigned from the company after she felt the sponsoring executive was turning the coaching into a tool for advancing the executive’s agenda. These situations are not easy and require high levels of empathy and clarity. The coachee is not well served if they end up with an action plan the leader believes cannot deliver the needed change, nor is the coachee well served if the leader tries to control all the plan details.
Action Tip: Focus on the high-level goals, for example, making sure communication is on the list if you perceive that to be a priority. However, if the coachee adds other goals because of feedback from different stakeholders (or because they firmly believe that the goal will make a positive difference), don’t use up goodwill by arguing about it. Instead, focus on the communication goal in your update meetings. By listening carefully to what your colleague is saying, you will see how they are progressing on the goal that matters most to you.
3. Avoid Micromanaging The Coaching Process
Coaching is most effective when the coachee and coach can quickly develop a trust-based connection. Executive and leadership coach Sophia Toh, CEO of Illuminate U Coaching, described an experience where a C-suite leader, by frequently checking in and suggesting specific areas for improvement with the coachee, his direct report, unintentionally created a distrustful environment because the coachee felt he was micromanaging the coaching.
Action Tip: It’s better to help your colleague focus on one of two things that make the goals a moving target. Once you align on the initial goals, keep to a structured update meeting rhythm so the coachee can share their progress and solicit your feedback.
4. Match Your Leadership To The Coaching
Leadership coach Kelly Byrnes, Founder and CEO of Voyage Consulting Group, once dealt with a situation in which a sponsoring executive supported the coaching process by investing in the coaching service, agreeing on the coaching goals, and setting aside time for meetings. However, that leader did not offer full-throated support for the coachee when a challenging power situation arose within the executive team. This caused the coachee to worry that the executive might not fully support her progress.
Action Tip: Actively champion your colleagues when they are in the coaching process. The coachee and colleagues who participated in the 360-degree feedback process will be highly attuned to how you respond to the coachee within the team’s overall interpersonal dynamics.
5. Allow Time For The Coaching Process To Evolve
Adults need time to hear feedback, decide on a course of action, experiment with new behaviors, and then make effective behaviors and new habits. Coach Roberta Matuson, CEO of Matuson Consulting, cautions executive sponsors that rushing the process can backfire. The best approach, she advises, is to “allow time for the coaching process to unfold and new behaviors to take root.” Most coaching engagements fall between six and 12 months, allowing the coachee to go through all the stages of understanding, insights, behavioral experimentation, and forming new habits. Though much of the work is visible externally, a large portion occurs in the coachee’s internal self-reflections.
Action Tip: Set realistic timelines for the coaching engagement, recognizing that it will take months for a coachee to master the new behaviors they have targeted in the coaching.
Following these five strategies will optimize the experience and development of the leader being coached and enhance your leadership impact.