The key players are the senior executive and the coach. However, executive coaching does not occur in a vacuum, there are a number of stakeholders involved in the executive coaching process — the executive’s leader, peers, reports, Human Resources — but the real focus is on the relationship between the coach and the individual executive. Continue reading
Is your senior leadership team under increased pressure as a result of increased regulation, changing demands and the need to be more accountable? Do you know senior executives who have expressed an interest in wanting to grow and improve? Or may be you know senior executives who need to improve their performance. What have you offered to help them? Are you making the most of Executive Coaching? Continue reading
I just love the spring, with daffodils and tulips out in the garden, the bluebells beginning to peep through in our local wood, longer days and sunshine brightening up our lives, it is a time of renewal, recharging, refreshing and spring cleaning!
So don’t confine this just to your personal lives. With summer just around the corner, it is a good time to check that your mentoring and internal coaching programmes are in great condition to keep them going over the holiday months and into the autumn. So many programmes tend to launch or set up new cohorts in the autumn and now is the time of year they drift into a malaise and loose momentum. Effective mentoring and coaching needs to be nurtured and energised to deliver the best outcomes, so whether you are in HR, L&D or an external consultant then ‘clean up’ your programmes at this time of year. Continue reading
A closer look at Imposter SyndromeSo in my final post for International Women’s Day, I am going to consider the issue of Imposter Syndrome, which can have a dramatic impact on a woman’s ambition. It used to be thought of as the domain of the high woman achiever. However, it is a syndrome also experienced by men, although originally was only identified in women and it was felt was far more prevalent amongst women than men. Amy Cuddy in her book ‘Presence’ talks about it being a female issue rather than a male issue as men are far less likely to talk about it for fear of social punishment for failing to conform to social stereotypes, i.e. that men are assertive and confident. Clance and Imes, the two psychologists who originally termed the condition found in their clinical experience that it occurs much less frequently in men and when it does occur, it is far less intense. However, more recent research published by the International Journal of Behavioural Science in 2011, shows that 70% of men and women have experienced it at some point in their lives. Millennial’s may suffer from Imposter Syndrome even more as they have commenced their careers at a time of extreme technological pace, where there are constant comparisons on social media between peer group members. Continue reading
Barriers to women’s ambitionIn my second article leading up to International Women’s Day on the 8th March 2017 I am considering how despite all the time, money and great intentions which have been put into building a more diverse talent pipeline in many organisations, there are still some basic barriers, which have not been removed and get in the way of women feeling and being more upwardly mobile. A Bain Study in 2015 illustrates that an employee’s early employment experience influences their confidence in whether to actively pursue a C-suite career or not. Some of the erosion of or challenges facing ambition come down to factors such as whether women are perceived as ‘ideal workers’, whether they are getting sufficient support from their own direct supervisor, the organisation’s leadership development process and the dearth of real role models. These types of barriers can be explored and supported through coaching and mentoring relationships. Continue reading
The issue of ambition in women’s careersWelcome to the first in a series of three articles as we lead up to International Women’s Day on the 8th March 2017, in which we consider the issue of ambition for women. Ambition still seems to be an obstacle for some women when developing their careers. Women’s presence on the Board has been proved to add competitive advantage to an organisation and despite there being roughly the same numbers of women and men in the workforce, there is still an unbalanced ratio in favour of men in more senior leadership roles. In the last two decades, many employers have shown enthusiastic commitment to gender diversity and women have made enormous strides in being able to compete on the same playing field as men at work, so what is going on? Continue reading
The way mentoring programme design was approached ten years ago needs to be reconsidered in the light of more recent generational differences in the workforce. By 2020 half the working population globally will come from the generation born between 1980 and 2000. As generations evolve, so do the methods for training, developing, coaching and mentoring people. Mentoring someone from the Millennial Generation (sometimes known as Generation Y) is not textbook developmental mentoring as we have experienced it previously. Understanding Millennials’ quite different career and value expectations is key if mentors are going to provide the right type of support to them, as well as the form of mentoring that Millennials relate best to, in order for organisational mentoring programmes to be effective.
It never fails to amaze me in my conversations with HR and L&D Professionals how many of them absolutely agree with me, that coaching is a des
red leadership behaviour, but under examination, it is not one particularly evident or valued in their own organisation. Of course, there is always one ‘good person’ on the senior management team who is a champion, but can’t seem to get traction. Or some middle managers, who are pushing the cause. However, it is so rare to find a ‘real’ energised coaching culture in any organisation. The best you can hope for are pockets of evangelists, who fly the flag for coaching and have partial success until their ‘ring leader’ leaves, or is deposed or fired! Continue reading