Developed by The Executive Coaching Forum

Third Edition January 2004

Copyright 2004 by The Executive Coaching Forum
All Rights Reserved
(See Copyright note below.)

The Need for a Handbook

Why a Handbook?

In the mid 1990s, as the economy moved into boom years, the market for management books, leadership gurus, and executive coaching exploded. Previously executive coaching had taken place quietly, often in the context of organizational change and business consulting. Problem executives who, although causing havoc in their organizations, still produced exceptional results or possessed rare and valued skills received special attention. It wasn’t until the mid to late 90s that executives actively began seeking out coaches on their own—and consultants and clinicians of all types began transforming themselves into coaches to meet the demand. At the same time, organizations began designing leadership programs that incorporated executive coaching advice and feedback to managers, personal as well as professional.

Businesses discovered that executive coaching, a powerful intervention on the individual level, could also generate organization-wide change. Yet executive coaching was often disconnected from corporate leadership development strategy, managed with only a light touch by the human resources organization. As the cost and impact of coaching were acknowledged, businesses, coaches, and executives began to see its potential for misuse and damage. The need for professional guidelines and practices became apparent. The Executive Coaching Forum and this Executive Coaching Handbook responded to this need.

Given the early state of the practice and the dearth of agreed-upon definitions and standards, the need to establish boundaries, best practices, and empirical findings was and still is critical to the long-term success of the field. Even today, there is no common definition of executive coaching, no clear formulation of its theoretical basis, no easy way to identify and access best practices, no agreed-upon set of qualifications for coaches, no commonly accepted empirical research findings—not even a widely accepted professional association devoted exclusively to executive coaching.

At the time of this writing, however, some progress is apparent. A number of research studies are underway, the Conference Board held its first conference on this topic in early 2003, and noteworthy books and articles on the subject are appearing. The field of executive coaching is coming to terms with the importance and potential dangers of this intervention, as well as the overwhelming need to integrate and strategically align coaching efforts with other organizational initiatives.

The Executive Coaching Handbook and the resources, tools, and materials offered free of charge on the Executive Coaching Forum’s website, www.executivecoachingforum.com, are all responses to these issues. They represent our attempt to further the field of executive coaching.

Recent Trends in Executive Coaching

In the past ten years, the meteoric rise of executive coaching in organizations has heightened the need for guidelines, standards, and definitions. Market conditions have forced companies to focus on the ROI of ever-tightening development budgets, especially coaching fees. Succession and development programs for high-potential talent are running at bare bones, if at all. Continual downsizing has stripped organizations of stretch or development positions while adding content and complexity to senior management roles.

For executives, the demands and pace of business life are increasing, creating an expanded need for integrity, accountability, hands-on involvement, and authentic leadership. Because everything takes place in “real-time,” there is no downtime to reflect, review progress, or rise above the fray to evaluate or change a course of action. Business itself has become global, virtual, and highly interdependent. These trends are forcing new diversity and complexity in problem solving and heightening the need to work in multicultural mode. Coaching can provide an oasis of calm, a place for executives to calibrate strategy, to evaluate themselves and their performance with an objective third party. It may be one of the few ways to get candid feedback, guidance, and the development they need to prepare for the future.

As the demand side of the executive coaching marketplace has opened up, the supply side has exploded with coaches of every type, training, and perspective. As we have already said, there is as yet no professional association, exclusively for executive coaches, to provide definitions, standards, entrance requirements, and evaluation mechanisms. This void has produced responses from all sides: executives, coaches, and sponsoring organizations. Some responses and innovations have furthered the field of executive coaching; others may prove problematic over time.

Responding to the Trends

Executives have come to see the value of executive coaching, both for themselves and their organizations. In most companies there is no longer any stigma to having a coach—in fact coaching is now seen as a normal or even high-prestige development activity. “When only the best get coaches, getting a coach means you’re one of the best,” people are beginning to think. We believe that the reason is, in part, because coaching provides a “time-out-of-time” break, in the face of relentless work demands, for reflection, evaluation, feedback, and purposeful dialogue. It gives leaders a rare breathing space, helping them be and become better leaders. Coaching also provides timely and targeted strategies for improving their less-developed sides and using their strengths to their own advantage. Because of these very real benefits, executives and other leaders have become more accepting and supportive of coaching in recent years.

Coaching ROI

As economic conditions have worsened in the last several years, many companies have been forced to reassess their leadership development efforts. In many cases, they have had to reign in coaching activity, ensuring that it aligns with their executive and leadership development strategy. In this new environment, coaching can no longer be seen as an ad hoc solution to use freely. The significant dollar amounts spent on coaching are increasingly scrutinized and measured for their return on investment.

In many companies the tracking of coaching outlay and return has proven to be a Herculean effort. Measuring results and returns for learning and development solutions, always difficult, is doubly challenging given the customization and uniqueness of the coaching itself. Organizations have set up processes and programs that determine who gets coaching, how to hire coaches, what should happen in coaching, how to determine whether to continue, and what’s being achieved. Procedures and policies for pricing, selecting coaches, matching them to executives, problem resolution, and tracking progress without violating confidentiality have to be established in the context of increasing leadership-development demands and decreasing budgets.

Dealing with Increased Acceptance

Organizations that use coaching extensively have built infrastructures to support the manager who seeks coaching. They have developed processes to help individuals get the coaching they and the organization feel is appropriate and established strict guidelines on the amount, content area, and timeline of coaching. One result of these efforts has been the growing “commoditization” of coaching in some organizations—the transformation of what was originally a fluid and dynamic process uniquely tailored to an individual leader’s needs to a set of highly regulated tools and packaged products and services. The art, mystery, and chemistry of the coaching relationship becomes less important than the reproducible mechanics of the coaching process.

Under these circumstances some of the most important benefits of executive coaching, its real potential to produce lasting and meaningful change, may be at risk. The drive to quantify how long, how much, and to what end, to document every single goal, step, and learning action, can reduce coaching to a series of meetings with a predetermined agenda rather than a set of relational experiences built on open dialogue, exploration, and learning. One of the greatest development challenges organizations will face in upcoming years is to balance managing and measuring coaching with meeting the unique learning needs of the individual.

Coaching Credentials

As the number of providers offering coaching services in the marketplace has skyrocketed, many coaches are looking for ways to “credentialize” the practice of coaching in order to differentiate themselves and their offerings. The lack of common definitions, agreed-upon standards, practice guidelines, and an overseeing professional association obviously calls this movement into some question, at least at this time. Competency models do exist, defining the skills and capabilities considered necessary for successful executive coaching, such as interactive listening skills or experience in delivering, analyzing, and debriefing assessment tools. While helpful, these models actually describe threshold competencies—the absolutely minimum skills required to establish a coaching relationship of any kind. Because executive coaching takes place within an organizational context, more subtle and nuanced descriptors are needed (for example, speaking truth to power while maintaining psychological safety, ability to work in partnership with the individual and organization). Equally important is business acumen, along with depth and breadth of experience in an industry.

The market for executive coaching today requires executive coaches to go after business opportunities and development activities differently than in the past. More than ever, coaches need networks of colleagues for support and business development. Training and ongoing development for executive coaches, especially those with advanced experience and active practices, is difficult to find outside of collegial learning groups.

Given the past decade of rapid growth, it is hard to imagine what the next ten years of executive coaching will bring. There will undoubtedly continue to be a challenge to establish and maintain the balance between the executive’s need for highly individualized assistance and the corporation’s interests in controlling costs and outcomes. It is critically important that the pendulum not swing too far in either direction in order to keep executive coaching a powerful component of an organization’s overall leadership-development strategy.

The Current State of Research

The research basis for executive coaching is, to date, minimal (Kilburg, 2000). Most, though not all, writing in the field is based on what can be termed practice wisdom. Individual executive coaches have, not infrequently, described their practices, techniques, and outcomes in articles and books, and have been the subject of reports in the media. Their descriptions are essential for this emerging field as practitioners struggle to define its phenomena and key variables. Unfortunately, a variety of biases on the part of authors can influence their descriptions of practice wisdom, limiting the degree to which their conclusions can be valid or generalized.

As the field grows and matures, there is a need for more rigorous research on executive coaching. Additional research should help answer a number of questions that have emerged over the past two decades, many of which are described below. Research should also help to resolve, or at least clarify, some of the conflicts that have emerged among various approaches to the practice of executive coaching and provide a reality check on practitioners’ claims. Luckily a growing number of researchers have entered the field, and more will no doubt follow.

Sources of Information on Executive Coaching Research
The TECF website, www.executivecoachingforum.com, lists and regularly updates announcements, research programs, and abstracts of all known peer-reviewed research reports and literature reviews. Click on “Research” to access this information. We invite your submissions and feedback.

Three research journals publish peer-reviewed articles on executive coaching:

Consulting Psychology Journal, published by Division 13 of the American Psychological Association (www.apa.org)

Personnel Psychology, loosely affiliated with the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (www.personnelpsychology.com)

The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, affiliated with NTL and published by Sage Publications (www.sagepub.com)

Two additional practitioner journals have occasional articles on executive coaching with some research basis, though such articles are typically not peer reviewed:

Harvard Business Review (www.hbr.com)

Organizational Dynamics, published by Elsevier Press (www.elsevier.com)

Research on executive coaching that has been conducted as part of a doctoral dissertation can be found at Dissertation Abstracts, which can be accessed through a number of library databases including wwwlib.global.umi.com/dissertations.

Finally, a number of professional associations have research-based presentations on executive coaching at their regional and national conferences:

The Academy of Management, Management Consulting Division (www.aomonline.org)

The Society for Consulting Psychology, Division 13 of the American Psychological Association (www.apa.org)

The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (www.siop.org)

In recent years, a number of consulting firms and business roundtable groups have conducted research on executive coaching, though their results are not always widely publicized or shared. Most are not subjected to peer review.

Major Questions in Executive Coaching Research

A partial listing of important research questions to date can be drawn almost directly from the definition of coaching as stated in this Handbook. Executive coaching is viewed as a multiparty set of relationship-based activities involving the client, her coach, and her organization. The goal is to enhance the capability of the executive and her ability to help the organization achieve short- and long-term goals. Each component of the definition suggests a range of largely unexplored research questions that can be organized under six topics:

1. The executive
2. The executive coach
3. The relationship between executive and coach
4. The executive coaching process
5. The organizational context of executive coaching
6. Coaching outcomes

(See Hunt and Weintraub, 2002, for a more thorough discussion of these questions.)

1. The Executive

- Who is most likely to benefit from executive coaching? Who is not?

- What role do emotional maturity, personality, personal values, psychological defenses, intelligence, career stage, life stage, and other individual attributes of the executive play in executive coaching?

- How does/should executive coaching relate to other aspects and roles of the executive’s life (such as family and health)?

- What kinds of learning and development needs is executive coaching best suited for?

- Can a useful typology of such needs be developed and validated?

- How can executives maximize the positive impact of executive coaching?

- What role does/should organizational position and role (CEO, VP) play on executive coaching processes and outcomes?

- What role does/should gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation play in executive coaching processes and outcomes?

- How are the expectations that executives bring to coaching shaped?

- How do executive clients define success in executive coaching?

2. The Executive Coach

- What are the appropriate qualifications for an executive coach?

- Should executive coaches be certified? If so, how?

- How should executive coaches be trained or developed?

- What is the impact of experience and training in organizational leadership, organizational development, individual development, and consulting/counseling techniques?

- How do the executive coach’s personality, life stage, career stage, and values influence his effectiveness as a coach?

- How does the executive coach’s gender, race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation influence coaching processes and outcomes?

- How does the executive coach define success in executive coaching?

3. The Relationship Between Executive and Coach

- What factors influence the initial match between the executive and her coach?

- How can/should the coach handle the executive’s expectations of or assumptions about coaching?

- What role do conscious and unconscious aspects of the relationship between executive and coach play in the success or failure of the coaching?

- How does/should the relationship between executive and coach evolve over time?

- What ethical issues can and will emerge in the relationship between executive and coach?

4. The Executive Coaching Process

- What critical success factors are required for successful contracting between executive and coach? Under what conditions?

- What assessment processes are best suited to particular executives, executive issues, organizational contexts, and desired outcomes?

- What goal-setting processes are best suited to particular executives, executive issues, organizational contexts, and desired outcomes?

- What coaching activities or techniques are best suited to particular executives, executive issues, organizational contexts, and desired outcomes?

- What is the role of planned versus unplanned (emergent) learning opportunities in the success of executive coaching?

- How long should coaching last? How frequently should executive and coach meet to achieve the desired outcomes with specific issues and within particular organizational contexts?

- What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of executive coaching that takes place in person, by telephone, or via the Internet?

- When should such communications tactics be used? When should they not be used?

- What theoretical frame or frames of reference are best suited to guide the executive coaching process? Under what circumstances?

- Experiential learning (action, reflection, feedback)

- Adult development

- Social systems interventions

- Psychodynamic

- Emotional intelligence

- Competency modeling

- What role does confidentiality play in executive coaching? What is/should be the limits of confidentiality?

- How does confidentiality influence the potential for organizational or team learning?

- How can executive coaching best relate to other forms of leadership development such as job rotation, task force assignments, and classroom-based executive education?

- How should multiple coaching needs within the same team be handled? By one coach working with multiple team members, or multiple coaches each working with an individual team member? What factors influence the choice between the two options?

- When should team coaching supplement or supplant individual coaching? Under what conditions?

5. The Organizational Context of Executive Coaching

- What factors (industry, location, size, organizational culture, and business economics) shape an organization’s use of executive coaching?

- How does executive coaching relate best to the larger organizational system within which the coaching takes place?

- How should executive coaching fit with other human resources and leadership development structures and processes?

- How does the context of the referral for executive coaching influence the executive, executive coach, coaching process, and outcome? What is the impact of:

- A culture of trust or mistrust?

- A strong focus on performance?

- An organization’s values or mission?

- Downsizing or other restructuring measures?

- How does the relationship between the executive and his immediate boss influence executive coaching?

- How can the executive coach best improve this relationship?

- When should the executive coach try to influence this relationship?

- When should an executive consider bringing in a coach to help other individuals or an executive team?

- What ethical responsibilities does an executive have when bringing in a coach to work with an individual or team?

- How should the organization monitor the executive, the coach, the coaching process, and coaching outcomes?

6. Coaching Outcomes

- How does the coaching process change the executive?

- How does executive coaching influence the executive’s behavior, personal development, career development, leadership style, family life, and health?

- Does executive coaching help the executive’s performance on the job? If so, under what conditions?

- Does executive coaching improve the following competencies, and under what conditions?

- Strategy definition and execution

- Vision setting and communications

- Role relationships

- Teamwork

- Organizational and team learning

- Product, process, or organizational innovation

- What kind of learning takes place as a result of executive coaching?

- Does coaching influence the executive’s ethical decision making and actions? If so, how?

- Is remedial executive coaching to prevent derailment possible? If so, under what conditions?

- What are the limits of remedial coaching?

- How do organizations change by virtue of executive coaching?

- How can ROI for executive coaching best be assessed?

- Is it possible to assess ROI for executive coaching?

- Is it desirable and helpful to executives, organizations, and society to assess ROI?

A Summary of the Research

We have presented a rather daunting list of potential research questions. Obviously the list can be prioritized, at least to a degree. Some studies are capable of addressing multiple questions. When undertaking research, it is clear that we cannot just ask “Does executive coaching work?” or “What is the ROI on executive coaching?” Research in executive coaching is every bit as complex as in the field of counseling in general, which has been underway for decades. Both are complex, relationship-based interventions in which intervener, client, relationship, problem or goal, and context all play a role. They are also interventions in which society has a considerable economic and moral stake.

The reality remains, however, that as a multibillion dollar enterprise, executive coaching cannot rely on practice wisdom as its only guide. Executives, their families, and their employing organizations have a compelling need for solid answers to most of the questions above. Similarly, researchers, particularly those from management and industrial/organizational/consulting psychology, have a tremendous opportunity in providing answers to such questions. The failure to adequately describe the outcomes, individual and organizational, of executive coaching and, in particular, the processes that lead to those outcomes, creates the potential that executive coaching will be guilty of providing “flawed advice” (Argyris, 2000).

The research effort requires both theory building and the theoretical testing of research designs. Theory building will be most useful if it is rooted in the data, an approach to research that builds “grounded theory” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Because grounded theory relies on the very careful reporting of data from cases, it should benefit from the strength of the field, the work of its practitioners. Careful and systematic reporting of cases will be much more useful in the long run than publications that are heavy on theory but short on data.

Theory building isn’t the same as theory testing, however. Ultimately, in order to justify the considerable investments being made in executive coaching, it would be most helpful to demonstrate, through the comparison of treatment and control groups, which procedures have merit under a particular set of conditions. This can be done. A recent work by Smither et. al. (2003), using a treatment and control group experimental design, tests the assumption that 360 degree assessments supplemented with coaching yield better organizational results than the 360 alone. (Executive coaches will be pleased to note that this experimental design confirmed that coaching is of value, at least under the circumstances described in the study.)

 

References

Argyris, C. (2000). Flawed Advice and the Management Trap. New York: Oxford Press.

Glaser B. and Strauss, A. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Hunt, J. and Weintraub, J. (2002). Executive coaching as the intervention of choice for the derailing executive: Some unanswered questions. In (ed. by Buono, A.) Developing Knowledge and Value in Management Consulting, Research in Management Consulting, Vol. 2, Greenwich, CT: IAP Press, pp. 83—112.

Kilburg, R. (2000). Executive Coaching, Developing Managerial Wisdom in a World of Chaos. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Press.

Smither, James; London, Manuel; Flautt, Raymond; Vargas, Yvette and Kucine, Ivy (Spring 2003). “Can working with an executive coach improve multi-source feedback ratings over time? A Quasi-experimental field study.” Personnel Psychology, Vol. 56, (1), pp. 23—44.

 

The Executive Coaching Forum

The purpose of the Executive Coaching Forum (TECF) is to establish definitions, guidelines, and standards for executive coaching, a practice area tightly defined by the population it serves and the nature of the three-party contract among executive, coach, and sponsoring company.

Our charter is to improve leadership and organizational effectiveness by establishing best practices and advancing the understanding of executive coaching among all members of the coaching partnership and among the general public. We achieve these ends by conducting activities and making information available for establishing best practices, educating the public, and improving professional development and networking.

Background

In the spring of 1999, a group of executive coaches and executive development and human resource professionals in the Greater Boston area began a regular series of meetings. As we discussed how to develop and maintain the highest standards for the practice of executive coaching, we developed principles and guidelines for use in our own practices and organizations. Our goal in this Handbook is to share these proposed standards with the greater community. We hope to stimulate a continuing dialog and process that enhances the professionalism of executive coaching.

Over the past four years TECF has expanded its mission beyond the distribution of this Handbook to provide a virtual network on the World Wide Web for anyone supplying, receiving, seeking, learning, managing, or supporting executive coaching. Our website, www.executivecoachingforum.com, has provided a variety of free resources since May of 2001. They include this Handbook, a virtual Forum, links to other executive coaching resources, and executive coaching tools for executives, coaches, and HR professionals. Today, over 6000 people a month visit our site from all over the United States and dozens of other countries. This Handbook and other TECF resources are used regularly by many Fortune 500 companies and other organizations, large and small, in many industries.

Future Development of Executive Coaching Standards and Guidelines

We plan to continually revise and improve The Executive Coaching Handbook based on your experience and feedback. We recognize that we are practicing in a newly defined arena and look forward to a time when we can make use of valid and reliable outcome studies, stories, and examples from practitioners. Future standards for executive coaching should continue to draw on related fields, including organization development and consulting psychology.

In the many conversations that have led to the drafting of this document, we uncovered myriad issues still to be addressed. These include training and credentials, licensing, and professional associations. We are tackling some of the issues through our website and virtual Forum. Our hope is that this Handbook and the Forum will continue to enhance executive coaching and address the issues arising out of this developing professional field for the mutual benefit of leaders, organizations, and the people they serve.

Our Board

Members of TECF’s Board of Directors are listed below in alphabetical order:

Susan A. Ennis, M.Ed.
Principal, Leadership Communications

Robert Goodman, Ed.D.
Principal, R.G. Goodman Associates

William H. Hodgetts, Ed.D.
Vice President, Fidelity Investments

James M. Hunt, DBA, LICSW
Associate Professor of Management, Babson College

Judy Otto, M.Ed.
Founding Partner, Foundations for Change

Lewis R. Stern, Ph.D., Chairman
President, Stern Consulting

 

Handbook Organization

The Executive Coaching Handbook is divided into four sections as follows:

Defining Executive Coaching describes executive coaching and the partnership required for maximum success. We believe executive coaching is most successful as a three-way partnership among coach, executive, and the executive’s organization. Each partner has an obligation and responsibility to contribute to the success of the coaching process. Although the primary work is between executive and coach, coaching is always an organizational intervention and, as such, should be conducted within the context of the organization’s goals and objectives.

Overarching Principles for Executive Coaching describes a set of values or goals that guide the coaching process. These principles provide a compass that the coach, the executive, and other members of the organization will use to set, maintain, and correct their course of action.

Guidelines for Practice provide procedural help for all coaching partners. These guidelines define the components of the process and outline the commitments that each partner must make.

Overview of Guidelines for Each Member of the Executive Coaching Partnership is a quick-reference guide for executives, coaches, and other interested parties in the executive’s organization.

The Third Edition

Major changes to the third edition of the Handbook include:

• An update on recent trends in the field of executive coaching, including a discussion of the “commoditization” of coaching.
• An expanded definition of executive coaching and discussion of the differences between executive coaching and other forms of coaching and development.
• A summary of research to date on executive coaching, plus an agenda for future research in the field.

Contributors to This Handbook

Original drafters of Handbook are Susan Ennis, Judy Otto, Lewis Stern, Michele Vitti, M.A., and Nancy Yahanda, Ed.D. Other Human Resource and Management Consulting professionals from leading organizations in the Greater Boston business community also provided input to the first edition. They include Betty Bailey, Wendy Capland, William Hodgetts, Mary Jane Knudson, Kitti Lawrence, Lynne Richer, Casey Strumpf, and Ellen Wingard. Additional feedback for subsequent editions has come from executive coaching professionals from New Hampshire to Alabama and Tennessee, Minnesota and Ontario to Texas and California, and Great Britain to Chile.

Larissa Hordynsky and Lew Stern edited the original version of this Handbook. The third edition has been edited and updated by Susan Ennis, Bob Goodman, Larissa Hordynsky, Bill Hodgetts, James Hunt, Judy Otto, and Lew Stern. Bill Hodgetts oversaw the production and final editing of the Third Edition.

To help TECF improve its offerings and enhance executive coaching as a viable development solution, please review our website at www.executivecoachingforum.com. E-mail your feedback and suggestions on the Handbook to Dr. Lew Stern, Stern Consulting, sternconsulting@comcast.net