Executive Coaching: Practices and Perspectives

Amazon.com
Coaching has for too long been relegated to the bottom of most consultants' bags of fixes. More properly called "executive development," this field is becoming one of the hotter areas in the training world because of today's need to retain and develop superior talent. This excellent book of essays and articles by the top people in the industry is the first to integrate the theory and practice of this emerging field.

One of the central tenets of the book is that psychological training is central to the in-depth coaching process. The publisher, Davies-Black, is an imprint of Consulting Psychologists Press (the developers of the famous Myers-Briggs personality-type instrument) and thus there is the requisite focus on understanding the complexities of various "type interactions" in the workplace as part of the coaching process. Nevertheless, the text is solid and understandable, with some sophisticated, challenging, and often provocative arguments. For example, the book examines the collaboration between coaches and organization development experts and suggests that an executive's problems may stem not from poor interpersonal skills but from poor organizational structure, inadequate ground rules, or unclear decision-making processes.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

As today's business leaders are rapidly discoveriong a true and trusted partner in the professionals pioneering the new frontier of executive coaching, Executive Coaching will lead the way as the first resource to bring together the theory and methods of this growing professional practice.

FROM THE CRITICS

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Comprehensive Advice from Twenty Experts
There is no single perfect way for executive leaders to be coached. Every coach has his or her own style, and every executive is an individual with a specific organizational role and context.

To address the needs of executives and the people who coach them, Catherine Fitzgerald and Jennifer Garvey Berger, the editors of Executive Coaching, have compiled a mosaic of different coaching styles and methods that offer a variety of ways to: deal with clients, start executive coaching in organizations, link coaching with business strategy, integrate the use of internal and external coaches, and work through the mistakes that coaches make when working with executive leaders.

To offer fresh insight about leading-edge coaching practices, the editors (both experienced consultants and development experts themselves) have brought together 20 coaches and human resource managers whose work covers the topic of executive coaching with vitality and experience.

Executive Coaching is divided into five parts that cover the field from every angle: "Executive Coaching Perspectives," "Executive Coaching Practices," "Managing Executive Coaching in Organizations," "Issues in Executive Coaching" and "Special Coaching Situations."

Executive Coaching Perspectives
In the book's first three chapters, Fitzgerald and Garvey, along with two other executive coaches, offer general principles that can facilitate action with clients, guidelines for engaging in the coaching conversation, and suggestions for coaches who are starting out. They also dig into the complexity of the executive mind; they offer ways to construct amodel for coaching and thoughtful suggestions to help coaches become reflective practitioners of the craft.

For example, David Coleman, an experienced executive coach and organizational psychologist, offers these six principles for thinking about a client's issues: Some weaknesses are strengths overdone. Persistent behaviors most likely have positive purposes. Assuming similarities when they do not exist can lead to unrealistic expectations and conflicts. An outdated view of the self can lead to behaviors that are disproportionate to current reality. Being both differentiated and connected is essential for effective leadership. The ability to see one's responsibility in each situation and the willingness to take calculated risks are key to making progress.

Executive Coaching Practices
The next three chapters explore different approaches to executive coaching, while developing ways that a coach can help to develop a leader by exploring the personal history and current life of the client. The last chapter in this section, written by Robert Golden, proposes an executive coaching model that uses adult development theory to help executives create transformative change.

The four chapters in the section entitled, "Managing Executive Coaching in Organizations" look at executive coaching from the point of view of senior human resource development and executive development managers who develop and manage executive coaching programs within businesses.

The section on "Special Coaching Situations" is dedicated to specific problems that can confront a client or the context in which the client works. For example, experts examine the dilemma of the senior executive who gets isolated and ways to coach the introverted and extroverted executive, as well as differences in the causes and effects of isolation. One chapter specifically looks at coaching entrepreneurs and the methods and approaches that work best for them.

Why Soundview Likes This Book
The editors of Executive Coaching are a mother (Catherine) and daughter (Jennifer) team who have combined their talents to create an informative resource for anyone looking to start an executive coaching program in his or her organization, or executive coaches who are looking to expand their knowledge of the field. The rich insights and diverse ideas contained in their book create a guidebook of information for those who want to improve their organizations by improving the leadership abilities of the people at the helm.