Coaching Is The Art And Science Of Educating Management Essay

Coaching Is The Art And Science Of Educating Management Essay

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Day comment about the worth of human capital and he says that the lots of organisational strategies practised in today's era such as the coaching, action learing, mentring and 360- degree feedback are directed towards the development of the leadership and human capital. Gold et. Al (2010) says that the the employee coaching is must in order to develop leaders and managers. Stern (2004) and Wright (2005) says that the coaching increase the leadership abilities in mangers and leaders. Schmidt and Bjork (1992) emaphaised on a point which is discussed by lots of other authors as well that the training alone cannot lead to an optimum organizational performance and this issue is further explained by Hesketh (1997) as there are lots of difficulties associated inherently with coaching and it to lack of tranfering learned skills to form a single to work environment. And this problem is addressed by Olivero et. Al (1997) and he says that the transfer problem is solved by encouraging coaching recipient to practice leadership skills and it also to develop more fully with the help of constructive feedback. The goal based coaching is also directed by the contiuous learning environment (Veale and Wachtel, 1996).

Now a days coaching is considerd as a new way to make a up leaders and their development. Coaching as seen in the literature is evoluted in early 1980s and those methods were executive or the supervisory development as suggested by (Maier et al., 1957) or the developmental counseling, and these old terminology are as discussed by Harris (1999) and he comments that these coaching terminologies are used prior to the development of the new coaching methods. In literature a lot of empirical studies have been done to study the effectiveness of coaching but the most important study is of Gegner (1997) is considered as the pioneer research in finding the effectiveness o coaching, in his study 25 executives are taken to study the relationship between the general satisfaction of the participants and the self-development outcome coaching outcomes, and he found that there is a positive relationship between them. But this work no doubt is a pioneer to study the effectiveness of coaching with the self-development of employees but there is more need to be done. This old paradigm of finding the coaching effectiveness is used by most of the other researcher and there is a failure to replace the old survey based methodology of finding the coaching effectiveness and there is a lack of literature on the new empirical way of the evidence based and systematic studies that completely formulate the coaching effectiveness (Feldman and Lankau, 2005; Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson, 2001). However the effectives of performance based coaching got a little support (Kilburg, 1996; Peterson, 2002). The argument was aslo proved in a research formulated by Hall et al (1999). The relation between the coaching and the productivity is showed by Olivero et al (1997) and he showed in a qualitative research that the coaching is directly proportional to the productivity and it also influence the middle and managerial performance, which directly affects the organization in the form of positive return on investment.

The executive coaching is given much importance in the literature and Styhre (2008) says that the executive coaching is an institutional exercise which is directed towards a new leadership practice in the form of organized and productive self- reaction and he concluded that that the face to face discussion between the coach and coachees is to be held regularly in an organization in order to overcome over the conflicts which arises in organization before the coaching process and it also bring in new form of communication in organization. On the other hand Jones et al (2006) comments that it a personalized type of coaching in which removes the weakness of executives and build their strengths, and the researchers further comments that the executive coaching has a very good impact on the performance of the executives and they performance their duties and responsibilities in more organized and systematic way which help them to achieve tasks in more efficiently and effectively which cannot be done before.

There are various types of coaching methodology discussed in the literature Landale (2005) comments that the aspect coaching is a type of coaching in which the managers are helped through coaching whenever they have any problem in the work place and in order to cope with the difficult circumstances they ask for the help and coaching always stays in their mind and coach is always there for their help to resolve the issue and build awareness in them, this form of coaching is quite effective and it helps in the development of the employees. Xavier (2007) says that this one to one coaching methodology is an old way of coaching employees and it got so much importance in an organization to build up skills and abilities in an organization and he suggested that the senior managers are supposed to have high level of coaching in an organization in order to polish the skills of employee to reach leadership levels. This argument is further supported by Bowles et al (2007) and he suggest that the coaching facilitate individuals and help them to exercise leadership skills in an organization and give a proper feedback throughout the process of coaching.

Coaching is argued as the heart of organisation potential and it helps to develop the employees and it not only help to develop the employee and managers in improving their skills but also develop the knowledge and competencies and it also depend on the organisational culture a good culture organisation with a high level of organisational capabilities can set such type of organisational coaching strategies which results in excellent managerial development (Rock and donde, 2008). A critical thing to business success is to make effective teams of workers and build up a leader and facilitate the mangers, the teams are built up to support each other and create a high performance teams. Contrary approach to coaching of leaders is that the leaders like to coach the managers and they are also interested in the betterment of organisation and in achieving good results (Rock and Donde, 2008).The coaching of executive leaders if they are developed additionally in their skills will bring massive change and this will also helps to develop the senior managers in increasing their skills (Ideus, 2005).

Developing leaders and managers via mentoring:

Mentoring is said to be the process for the informal transmission of knowledge, social capitol and psychosocial support alleged by the recipient as related to work, career, or professional development; mentoring engages informal communication, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less (the protégé) (Bozeman and Feeney, 2007, p. 731).

Mentoring is a fruitful relationship between a person with advanced experience and knowledge and junior person who seek s assistance, guidance and support for their career, personal and professional development (Fowler and O'Gorman, 2005).

Mentoring programmes play a significant role in leadership development and serve as a key tool of/for human resource training and development (Day, 2001; Noe et al., 2002; Stead, 2005). Mentoring is a developmental relationship between a more experienced or skilled mentor and a less experienced or skilled protégé´ whereby both mentor and protégé benefit from the relationship (Chao et al., 1992; Day and Allen, 2004; Kram, 1983, 1985). Recognize ing a wide array of benefits such as improved leadership skills, socialization into organizational roles, lower employee turnover, and improved job performance (see Allen et al., 1997; Chao et al., 1992; Ragins et al., 2000; Seibert, 1999), many organizations have started initiate ing formal mentoring programmes by assigning mentors to their employees rather than expecting informal and volunteer-based mentoring to naturally occur among employees (Douglas and McCauley, 1999; Kram, 1983). Various methods such as 360-degree feedback, executive coaching, peer coaching, action learning, and formal mentoring have been implemented to enhance leadership development (Day, 2001; Douglas and McCauley, 1999; McCauley and Douglas, 2004).

Whereas each above mentioned method is having its own exclusive involvement, they all have their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, coaching may be applied when the skills or professional proficiency is needed to be improved for a little period of time, but it can be too expensive for the organization have strict strategies to uphold and maintain the principle of cost effectiveness. (McCauley and Douglas, 2004).

Formal mentoring has been extensively practiced as a tool of employee development and leadership development (Day, 2001; Douglas and McCauley, 1999; Eddy et al., 2003). There are about 20 percent of organizations who are having 500 or more then employees are using and practicing formal mentoring (Douglas and McCauley, 1999), and the number of organizations are increasing (Douglas and McCauley, 1999; Nemanick, 2000).

Formal mentoring has been intended and executed to develop the rapidly advanced and high-potential managers and to get them ready for key management positions. It has also been intended to boost the minorities and number of women in leadership positions, to make possible the socialization of new managers, and to fulfill the development needs of senior executives (see Douglas and McCauley, 1999; Hansman, 2001; Hegstad and Wentling, 2004; McCauley and Douglas, 2004).

Programmes of formal mentoring are useful in a various ways. First, in form they are very elastic: they can take the form of mentoring in the groups or one to one mentoring, or peer mentoring, depending on the definite needs and accessibility of the potential leaders (Day, 2001; McCauley and Douglas, 2004). Second, programmes of formal mentoring are useful because the team-based work is not only involve in an instant response in the set direction from the leaders, but also the commitment of leader to teamwork since structures of the organizations today are getting flattere (Day, 2001; McCauley and Douglas, 2004).

Personal and professional development is also emphasis by the mentoring (Kram, 1983, 1985). The theory of mentoring is comprised of three functions: psychosocial support, role modeling and career support (Scandura and Ragins, 1993; Wanberg et al., 2003). Psychosocial functions develop the protégés work effectiveness and the sense of competence, whereas the function of role modeling provides protégé suitable behavior, attitudes and values. The Career functions make the protégés ready for the advancement of (Kram, 1983).

The functions of the career include protection and coaching, visibility and exposure, challenging assignment and sponsorship, while the psychological functions includes friendship, counseling, acceptance and confirmation (Kram, 1983). For example, the feedback and suggestion of strategy for the achievement of work objectives and challenging assignments are provided by the mentor. The mentor serve the protégé as a role model, deliver them a positive unconditional support and provides counseling (Kram, 1983, 1985).

The learning of the protégés is through observing the leadership behaviors of their mentors (Sosik and Godshalk, 2000) and communicating or working together with their mentors (i.e. mentors as role models). The protégés are able to improve their professional and personnel competencies due to challenging assignments which are given by the mentor to them (Kram, 1983, 1985). Through this relationship mentors own leadership skills can also be improved (Allen et al., 1997). Therefore, the whole process of mentoring benefits both the mentors and protégés by enhancing and improving the skills they need and require to remain on top in their respective professional spheres.

There are conceptual similarities in the behaviors of leadership and functions of mentoring (Sosik and Godshalk, 2000). For instance, Yukl (1990) identified behaviors of leadership equivalent psychosocial functions such as inspiring, networking, supporting and developing. The functions of career development identified by Yukl(1990) parallel leadership behaviours, such as clarifying the objectives and roles, networking and developing. Leaders behaviors may be displayed by mentors (e.g., role modeling) (Gladstone, 1988; Sosik and Godshalk, 2000).

It is suggested by the Dalakoura (2010) that the senior executives and line managers both can use general practices such as coaching, mentoring and 360-degree feedback for the development of leaders in the firm or by other sources such as experimental learning, job assignments, external consultants, commercial case studies and mostly the classroom type of leadership training which may b with in-house or outside trainers. It is suggested by the Conway (1995) that in developing leadership styles mentoring plays an important role which subsequently helps in the collaboration and development of team work in the company. Mc Alearney (2005) argues that theories concerning with development of middle and senior leaders explains mentoring as the main area which can facilitate in developing these individuals. In addition, it is suggested by the Abraham Zaleznik that with the people mentors takes risk which helps these individuals in developing the key leadership skills (Conway, 1995). The concept of mentoring is also supported by the McAlearney (2005) that mentoring is a developmental relationship which can enhance development of individuals. Passion are rising dramatically for mentoring, in the USA from the 500 top firms 70 percent of the firms are having mentoring programmes whereas, in the UK it is described by the 80 percent of senior executives as a key of their achievement (Carvin, 2011). Cunningham and Eberle (1993) argue that mentors are also describes as persons who could facilitate new leaders to learn the tricks and most mentees regularly portray their mentors as leading role models which display signs of skills and styles which mentees want to copy. The above discussion means that mentoring helps in the development of new individuals to become leaders as well as the top and middle managers to develop further skills.

Mentors promote the developing environments in which the development of the protégés are more complete and faster than their peers and are therefore they are better prepared as a leader to compete in the organization. In the non-democratic environments this clearly creates issues where some of the individuals obtain favored treatment (both in perception and in reality). When the attention is drawn away from the benefits of mentoring to issues, the organization may suffer negative consequences like issues of fairness, mostly in cross-race and cross-gender relationships where the sexual assumptions and societal taboos exist (Clawson and Kram, 1984; Ragins, 1995; Thomas, 1989). Even against this potentially uneven backdrop (Kram and Hall, 1995), interest and research into mentoring continues, stimulated by the benefits mentoring holds for mentors, protégés and organizations. A key issue for future research and theory integrating leadership and mentoring is whether the costs of a non-egalitarian work environment outweigh the benefits of mentoring.

Leadership Development via 360 Feedback

All organizations aim at having very effective leadership (Collins and Holton, 2004; Day, 2000). The organizations are committed to developing managers' skills and it is very obvious that the budget for leadership development programs will increase manifolds in the coming years (Nikolaou et al., 2006). Innovation is highly valued in leadership development programs. The use of 360-degree in the field of leadership development, is one of the most significant developments in recent years is (or multisource/multi-rater) feedback. The managers regularly receive feedback about their daily interaction with their subordinates and colleagues (Seifert et al, 2003). This feedback is usually provided in written form on the predesigned comprehensive formats involving a wide range of information about behaviors and skills (Waldman and Bowen, 1998). The multisource feedback method has become immensely popular in recent years (Morgeson et al., 2005) as it makes the feedback more accurate, precise and reliable and discourages the traditional supervisory feedback which was mostly arbitrary (Fourjet, 2006; Smither et al., 2004). It facilitates the managers to adopt and evolve a comprehensive perspective on behavior, work performance and development (Bernardin et al., 1993; McCarthy and Garavan, 2001).It has been proved with evidence that multimedia feedback is seldom ignored by the managers (Smither et al., 2005).

.Researchers have recently been critical of the use of multisource feedback to achieve performance improvement and behavioral change. Though organizations frequently assume that a multisource leadership development intervention will inevitably lead to enhanced leadership skills but a lot depends on the judicious approach of the managers (Nikolaou et al., 2006). In case the managers are not capable of handling or analyzing the feedback, it cannot be used effectively. The researchers concluded that it is unrealistic for practitioners to expect large-scale, across the board performance improvement following MSF. Smither et al. (2005) found that one of the factors that may explain its effectiveness is receptivity of the recipient to the feedback and the recipient's intention to change behaviour as a result of the feedback. Waldman and Bowen (1998) emphasise that feedback acceptance consists of being both receptive of the feedback and having positive intentions to use it.These findings suggest that the immediate reactions of the manager receiving the feedback are important because they are not simply transitory and are relevant in explaining intentions to use the feedback.

The concept of acceptance is very significant both in its practical and theoretical perspectives especially it is viewed in the context of development focused multisource feedback process. The whole process becomes very effective and efficient when it is carried through goal setting activities (DeNisi and Kluger, 2000). The managers are not likely to proceed further if they think that the feedback is not reliable. The MSF prompts managers to work for brining a positive change in their organization which will ultimately play a pivotal role in the overall development of that organization (Stajkovic and Luthans, 1997). Or. However, it should not be assumed that all MSF will result in a positive change initiated by the managers who were supposed to review the feedback (Luthans and Peterson, 2003; Smither et al., 2005).

Some describe leadership effectiveness as being in the "eyes of the beholder" (Church, 1998, p. 3). It is not always easy to evaluate the effectiveness of leadership due to various factors such as organizational success indicators, the difficulty in getting such information and some external factors which are beyond the leader's control (Church, 1998). It can be rightly argued as suggested by some that a 360-degree feedback can serve as a proxy measure to evaluate leadership effectiveness as it is based upon performance (Hogan et al., 1994). It is noteworthy that as this process has become popular with the passage of time, the multisource feedback is now very vital to assess performance. The 360-degree feedback involves all individuals and professionals working within an organization as managers, supervisors, subordinates, peers and customers. Self appraisal executed in a strictly formal and systematic way is also an integral part of this assessment which is subsequently used for the purposes of promotion, compensation, succession planning and a variety of other administrative purposes (Atwater and Waldman, 1998a, b; Borman, 1997; Church and Waclawski, 1998). The basic aim of 360-degree feedback is to enhance leader's awareness of themselves in a various situations and how to deal with situations or interact with other professionals within their organization (Atwater and Waldman, 1998a). This helps the managers to focus on their strengths and to improve upon the areas where they feel themselves deficient or weak (Allan et al., 2000). Moreover, the data collected in this process is more accurate and precise and thus more comprehensive than the data collected through one source and ultimately it strengthens the elements of predictability and reliability within that organization (Dyer, 2001).

McCauley and Moxley (1996) argue that the readiness of the managers to openly hear and accept feedback will make the process of 360-degree feedback more useful for the organizations. This helps them shed their biased opinions and work for the development of their organizations taking on board maximum people from their organizations (McCauley and Moxley, 1996). The managers can also prepare very successful future plans for their organizations by using this process effectively ( McGurk, 2009). This process can also become a very important factor to bring about a positive change in the workplace culture (Crethar, Phillips and Brown, 2011). The effective use of the 360-degree feedback process can introduce innovative methods in preparing and implementing future plans for the organizations ( Trinka, 2004). It becomes a win-win situation for both organizations and people working for them as they equally benefit from this process.

The 360-degree feedback as suggested by Alimo-Metcalfe and Alban-Metcalfe (2006) is one the smartest interventions of Human resources and the advantage of using 360 degree feedback is to boost leadership self awareness and managerial behaviour. The results of this process provide the managers and other employees with an opportunity to improve and develop themselves into successful professionals. However, the feedback is commonly used for the purposes of development only (Porr and Fields, 2006).