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Executive Coaching by Proxy in a Large Organization: A Leadership Development Tool

October 25, 2002 

"Executive coaching is a management development tool that has the potential

to combine personal career development with organizational strategy and

goals.  In other words, what benefits the individual also benefits the

organization.  Until recently, executive coaching was used primarily to help

an executive in trouble get back on track.  However, it might also be used

to develop managerial skills, personal learning and leadership development.

Three major types of coaching have been identified (Thach & Heinselman,

1999): feedback, in-depth development, and content.  The first two types,

feedback and in-depth development coaching, focus primarily on the personal

development of the executive and often require a one-on-one relationship

with an executive coach.  The third type, content coaching, provides leaders

with the opportunity to develop knowledge and skills in specific content

areas.  These content areas can range from corporate finance issues,

strategic planning, to organizational development tools.  This paper focuses

on content coaching.

One underutilized, yet potentially beneficial area for content coaching is

in understanding and improving organizational climate.  Organizations spend

a great deal of time and monety designing, administering and collecting

climate surveys, yet they are often unable to fully realize their potential

for improving the organization.  This untapped potential is often due to the

unwillingness of or inability of the manager to provide feedback of the

survey data to his or her employees and engage in a substantive dialogue

about the organizational climate.  This unwillingness might be attributed to

lack of skill, fear of negative feedback or a lack of time.  However, the

climate or 'health' of an organization is too important to ignore.  Research

has indicated that once climate perceptions are formed, these perceptions

can have a profound impact on a number of important organizational outcomes.

Recent studies have found that sound management practices strongly impact

employees' job satisfaction, customer satisfaction and loyalty,

organizational productivity, organizational citizenship behavior, and

profitability and growth. 

As with any development tool, coaching also has some pitfalls to avoid and

some challenges to face.  Some of the pitfalls are similar to those with any

program implementation in an organization:  not getting buy-in of top

management, failure to integrate executive coaching with other leadership

development strategies you may already have in place, and not selecting the

right coach for the right leader.  Managing the growth of the demand for

skilled executive coaches is one of the challenges facing this filed.

Implementing executive coaching in large organizations could be very costly

and may affect future availability of this form of management development.

Hall et al. (1999) suggests that developing a network of internal coaches,

usually human resource professionals may be the best strategy so that

companies do not have to give up this valuable form of executive

development.  Developing an internal network of coaches can also be

problematic in that both the coach and the executive are from the same

organization. 

Investing time and money in organizational climate surveys is a common

practice in high performing organizations.  Climate surveys are used to

uncover the nature of employee concerns, identify areas of improvement,

highlight organizational strengths, and improve communication.  Successful

climate survey implementation starts by a manager examining his or her

climate survey results and engaging in a dialogue with employees.  Employees

want to know that their suggestions are listened to and taken seriously.

The challenge for many managers is that while they may have technical

expertise in their functional areas, they often have little experience,

training, or skill in feeding back comate survey results to employees and

developing appropriate action plans.  One solution or approach is to develop

managers' skills necessary to analyze survey feedback data, talk with

employees, and facilitate action-planning sessions.  Improving a manager's

skill in interpreting climate survey results and engaging in a dialogue with

his or her employees falls under the category of content coaching.

One of the world's largest military organizations understood the importance

of member satisfaction to organizational performance and turnover and

developed and administered a climate survey to all active duty military and

civilian members in this branch of the armed services.  Previously some

departments had used their own climate surveys, but this was the first

organization wide standardized survey.  The survey focused on key interest

items for leadership including such factors as job characteristics,

participation, teamwork, unit flexibility, recognition, leadership and

satisfaction among others.  The charter for the survey was to provide

commanders at all levels, with valuable information for the purpose of

improving their organizations.  Survey administration was completed

successfully; however as is typical of these types of instruments, the

climate reports were largely unused after they were distributed.

Subsequently, when the time came to administer the next survey two years

later, the challenge was to improve leaders' abilities to interpret climate

survey data; provide feedback of the data to unit personnel, and take action

as a result of the climate data.  A plan had to be developed to drive action

and realize the potential benefit of the organizational climate survey since

considerable time and money were invested in the survey.

In an ideal world without resource constraints or perhaps in a smaller

organization; individual coaches could be assigned to every leader to

provide content coaching on climate survey interpretation, feedback, and

use.  However, there were numerous constraints to this approach.  First,

time was a critical factor.  Internal resources were an additional

constraint.  Clearly there were not enough coaches for the task at hand and

little likelihood of hiring additional personnel to meet the increased

needs.

Given the resource constraints faced, the strategy outlined in this paper

became the best available option to accomplish the goal in this situation.

Every location in this organization had an office tasked with the

administration of the organizational climate survey.  The official stated

task of a manpower office was to program human resources to accommodate new

and changing missions and workloads, conduct outsourcing and privatization

studies, and provide management advisory services to effect the most

efficient utilization of human resources for any given organization. 

A training program was developed for Manpower and Organization  (M&O)

commanders that would provide them with the necessary tools and background

to help advise commanders on how to go about interpreting their survey

reports and providing feedback of these results to their employees. The

researchers wanted to develop content coaches who could assist the

commanders in understanding their own climate results.  M & O offices were

not expected to be consultants or to design action plans for the commanders;

they were expected to encourage and assist commanders to do this on their

own. 

Additional follow-on resources were also developed to assist in this

coaching process.  A CD ROM was created that mirrored the training provided

to the M&O offices.  A web site was also created that provided an online

workbook training session that walked the commander or manager through the

process of understanding his or her climate results and developing an action

plan. 

Statistical analyses on the climate survey data collected in this

organization showed a strong relationship between leadership and

satisfaction.  Also, employees who had received feedback on the first

climate survey results had higher perceptions of leadership than those who

had received no feedback at all.  Both of these conclusions demonstrated the

critical nature of leadership in the organization and the importance of

developing the commanders' skill in interpreting climate results and

providing feedback to the organization.  Executive coaching and coaching by

proxy provides an effective way of developing these very important skills.

Effectively using climate surveys can help refocus managers' attention on

this important facet of organizational success and can be the impetus for

meaningful dialogues between management and employees.  Coaching can be used

as a leadership development tool for this purpose.  Developing management

skills using coaching techniques can be accomplished even in a very large

organization with somewhat limited resources.  Coaching by proxy is a

practical and effective option for organizations that want to reap the

benefits of coaching but face similar resource constraints as the

organization described in this case (Anna, Chesley & Davis, 2001, pp.

61-68)."

Reference:  Anna, A., Chesley, J. & Davis, K., (2001)Grant, Executive

coaching by proxy in a large organization: a leadership development tool.

The Journal of Leadership Studies, 8(1).

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Created: 2008-02-25, Updated: 2009-02-17