Services
Why Hire a Leadership Coach?
Organizations hire Work & People Solutions to work intensively with either specific individuals in a management role or a group of managers. Leadership coaching focuses on skills that drive professional success for them and, by extension, for the organization.
Many of those promoted to a leadership role bring extensive and valuable product or technical knowledge to their roles. Others may advance to leadership functions based on their lengthy experience at the organization and knowledge of how the company operates.
However, neither of these reasons for being appointed to manage a group of direct reports within the organization is highly aligned with success leading people. Leadership coaching enables the technically adept and seasoned professional to gain skills and develop methods for motivating high performance in a supervisory or leadership role.
We can help organizations and individuals!
Would a leadership coach benefit your organization?
Organizations hire Work & People Solutions to work intensively with either specific individuals in a management role or a group of managers to focus on skills that drive professional success for them and, by extension, for the organization. When career development plans include the need for improvement in interpersonal aspects of managing others, leadership coaching blends learning, support and practical guidance about methods that enhance professional growth.
Case Study: Meeting an Organization’s need for leadership coaching support
A large manufacturing firm’s Organizational Development (OD) department had implemented a 360 degree multi-rater feedback survey for five of its middle managers, with the objective of gathering impressions of these managers’ strengths and challenges from those with whom the managers interacted the most. Survey feedback was provided by the managers’ peers, direct reports, and supervising senior manager/executive.
The organization hired Work & People Solutions to review the survey findings and develop an individualized Coaching Plan for each manager participating in this OD effort. The engagement also included determining what type of additional group training might be indicated for this group, facilitating shared learning of best practices and valuable skills commonly applied by effective managers.
Stephen Kohn reviewed the 360 degree survey findings for each manager and met with each of them individually, in-person, to present the findings of the survey to them. This meeting led to the manager and Mr. Kohn, as their designated Leadership Coach, developing themes for individualized guidance and support for challenges identified in the survey results.
The individual managers each met with Mr. Kohn via Zoom sessions thereafter for a series of twice-monthly hourly coaching sessions to implement the Coaching Plan. At the end of these individual sessions, the managers were asked to complete a survey about how effective the Coaching Plan and support was for them. On a scale of 1 (Low value of coaching received) to 5 (Superior value of coaching received), the five managers all provided ratings of 5 for their overall experience in receiving Mr. Kohn’s coaching.
Mr. Kohn also co-facilitated quarterly group coaching/training with a member of the organization’s OD team. The topics and content developed for these group training sessions were based on common themes from the original 360 degree survey feedback findings, thereby tailoring the training to the entire group’s most relevant and salient leadership challenges.
Would a leadership coach benefit you personally in your career?
Individual Managers hire Work & People Solutions based on a self-assessment that external coaching support is a valuable means for building leadership capabilities. Coaching from an experienced leadership development expert offers opportunities for the individual to gain a wealth of insights about how to best apply emotionally intelligent management practices based on growing self-awareness and superior relationship building skills.
Case Study: Responding to Individual Manager’s request for leadership coaching support
A senior-level executive/partner at a large regional accounting firm asked a peer (another firm partner) if he knew of a resource to help him manage the stress of leading a large group of more junior accountants while also managing his own portfolio of business. The peer partner had a friend who had received valuable guidance from Mr. Kohn in the past, and referred this client to Work & People Solutions.
The coaching process included an initial assessment of the client’s specific leadership challenges, and the goals he had in mind for participating in a series of coaching sessions. This assessment identified challenges he experienced communicating interpersonally with younger staff who were ambitious and hoping to build their own book of business to advance their stature at the firm.
The coaching focused extensively on discussing empathic listening skills which the client acknowledged were often absent in his method of dealing with his subordinates. He was prone to being impatient and results-driven rather than tuned into the issues experienced by his direct reports. The coaching discussions led to the client announcing a new open-door policy for his direct reports to take advantage of. He invited his direct reports to meet with him as needed to develop a greater, mutual understanding of issues of concern to them. He used these discussions to manage intraoffice conflicts and to provide more mentoring to his staff about how to advance at the professional services firm.
The senior-level executive had viewed these types of discussions as wasteful in the past, as they took time away from billable work. But coaching guidance showed the client that these meetings had a valuable return on time invested and improved group morale. Coaching sessions with this executive lessened from a more intensive phase of once per week at the start of the coaching relationship to just once monthly after a three-month period.
The client noted that he perceived greater morale among and engagement with his direct reports after receiving the coaching from Mr. Kohn. He also expressed sincere enjoyment and heightened personal satisfaction from serving more in a mentor role with his subordinates, which he had not appreciated before receiving the guidance for his Leadership Coach.
1:1 Leadership Coaching
Conducted in-person or via video platform such as Zoom
- Focus on client’s goals and objectives for coaching support
- Builds emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills
- Can be integrated with a professional development plan developed with one’s supervisor and organization’s Human Resources / Training department
- Identifies criteria that demonstrate progress in one’s leadership practice and methods for measuring this progress objectively
- Can be limited to pre-defined timeframe or be provided on an ongoing basis, as mutually determined by client and coach
Group Leadership Coaching
Typically provided after a group has participated in a leadership training program, delivered as a follow-on component to the training received
- Focus is on practical implementation of skills discussed and addressed in leadership training
- Enables shared learning environment for group of professionals experiencing leadership issues in a particular organizational environment
- Offers training synergies by allowing leaders to identify and integrate traits that their peers have found effective while performing their professional leadership role
- May lead to individual coaching once the group coaching training track is complete
