“Standard skill and talent are not the most important assets. The integrity behind the skill and the potential of the talent is what really makes a difference.” Nakia Melecio
Studies of leadership consistently report that leadership ability is directly linked to subordinate performance, behaviors, and reactions including job satisfaction, positive mood, affective commitment to the organization, reduced turnover, reduced withdrawal behaviors, improved work performance, pursuit of more challenging goals, goal attainment, perseverance, higher resistance to stress, and value of progress Furthermore, subordinate reactions to inept leadership have been found to include turnover, malingering, insubordination, and industrial sabotage the links between leadership and auxiliary responses make a convincing argument for the need for more than empirical associations, but a deeper theoretical understanding of the leader Leadership Developmental Level (LDL) is examined as a predictor of leader performance. Also, this study is an attempt to understand what unique contribution the use of constructive-developmental theory and coaching may add to our current understanding of leadership and coaching culture. To do this, the predictive ability of constructive-developmental theory is compared to that of a known predictor of leader performance: Big Five Personality. This comparison allows us to answer the question, “Can LDL tell us anything about a leader’s performance that we couldn’t find out through a test of personality?” Only after answering this question can we begin to understand and measure those qualities that make leadership distinct from other constructs such as personality.
Changing the culture of an organization is a daunting task. The respondents – 80% of who were senior leaders – were asked how a series of coaching and mentoring activities could best contribute to achieving a coaching culture. Accurately, the respondents were presented with ten activities and asked to select the five that would most contribute to achieving a coaching culture. These results are shown in five themes emerged
From their responses:
1. “Seed,” the organization with leaders and managers who can role model coaching approaches.
Developing strategies to change a company’s culture soon leads to confronting the issue of scale. Specifically, how can a sufficient number of people in the organization gain the learning experiences they need to initiate, grow, and sustain culture change? The key to addressing this issue of scale is to select the right people, invest in their development, and position them as role models for the new coaching culture. In turn, as these people coach others, those who are coached will place special emphasis on utilizing and improving their coaching capabilities. The respondents recommended creating a cascading effect by using leaders as role models for coaching (75% selecting this activity) and providing them with coaching skills training 69%. The key is to make this training available on a selected basis, and not necessarily to offer coaching skills training to all employees 21%. This approach effectively deals with the issue of scale. Training all employees would be time-consuming and expensive. Whereas focusing the practice on leaders and selected managers and then having them be role models and cascade coaching behaviors throughout the organization ensures maximum return on investment and leverages scale to an advantage. About one-third, 35% of the respondents selected individual coaching for leaders and managers as a top-five activity. It seems that the respondents much preferred training leaders and managers to be coaches rather than being coached.
2. Link coaching outcomes to the business.
Linking coaching culture outcomes to business goals was recommended by half 51% of the respondents. This finding reinforces what we learned earlier about the gap between the importance and effectiveness of demonstrating the business value of coaching and linking coaching outcomes to business outcomes. While it is viewed as extremely important to do so, 97% of the respondents’ organizations were not viewed as being effective at doing so. This gap represents a significant opportunity for those who desire to create coaching cultures. One respondent suggested that “strategic goals and tactics are developed around coaching and specific performance metrics be developed for coaching behaviors,” as might be found in a competency model, thus further linking business outcomes to individual coaching outcomes.
3. Coach senior leadership teams in creating culture change.
Almost half 46% of the respondents recommended having their leadership teams receive coaching on how to create culture change. Earlier, we learned that only 20% of the respondents indicated that team or group coaching was being done. Aforementioned may represent another potential gap in what is needed to create culture change vs. what is currently being done. Closing this gap is vital because teams whose members focus on providing each other timely feedback, learning together and building upon their interdependent strengths typically show a higher capacity to achieve organizational improvement than organizations who do not follow these practices.
4. Recognize and reward coaching-culture behaviors.
Once the behavior changes kicks in, it is vital to reinforce the shift to increase its sustainability. Forty-three percent of the respondents ranked this activity among their top five choices.
5. Integrate coaching with other people-management processes.
Institutionalizing the change is critical for sustainability. Coaching approaches and behaviors must be integrated with the appropriate people processes so that these become a natural way of doing business. The respondents felt it was essential to incorporate coaching approaches into learning and development 43%, job-competency models 39% and talent-management processes 32%.
