The coach is likely to be particularly effective in reducing his client’s anxiety if the performance improvement is linked to specific rewards. Thus, it is not only important that revenues increased by 30%, it is important also that this leader receive a substantial bonus, salary increase, increased responsibility, or promotion in recognition of her improved performance. The coach who is aligned with the managerial culture holds an advantage over coaches aligned with the other five cultures regarding the reduction of anxiety, because he can commit to specific goals (and this commitment is itself anxiety-reducing). On the other hand, with explicit coaching goals, there is always the danger that if these goals are not met, the anxiety of both leader and coach will be increased, not diminished.
Alternative Culture
The leader and coach who are associated with this culture tend to feel less anxious when the client “feels better,” feels more aligned with some greater purpose or higher level of consciousness or feels that he has access to some higher (spiritual) source of energy or inspiration. Expertise resides in multiple fields and is oriented to the psychic, physical and spiritual welfare of the client. It is unlikely that a leader will be a source of health and healing for their organization if they themselves are wounded. In many ways, this culture offers the most accessible and intimate vehicles for the reduction of anxiety: the leader senses that he is physically “more alive,” he is experiencing “less stress,” or he is “energized “by some external power or presence. There are no standardized criteria for determining the success of coaching in this culture. Success in each case is defined by the client or by the specific community of belief and values in which this specific coaching process is engaged.
Advocacy Culture
This specific culture is often filled with anxiety, given that it inevitably involves some confrontation and some tension between the “haves” and “have nots.” The client (or client system) that is receiving the coaching is likely to feel less anxious when he feels “heard” and “appreciated.” He will feel even less anxious if he believes he has been influential in the area(s) of greatest concern to him. He is himself an “expert” – or at least someone who is heard. As in the case of the managerial culture, anxiety is often reduced in the advocacy culture if the coach and client can be explicit about their coaching goals. An advocacy-oriented coach is likely to help her client identify specific ways in which (and times and places when) he can be more influential. If “influential” can be stated in measurable terms, then the advocacy leader and coach can celebrate victory (yet also risk the increased anxiety associated with defeat).
Virtual Culture
The leader and coach who operate out of this particular frame of reference are involved in a balancing act with regard to the reduction or elimination of organizational anxiety. On the one hand, the coach is often in the business of challenging his client with new sources of expertise—sharing information regarding the VUCA-Plus world in which her client must operate. or identifying new points of access into a dynamic network of relationships. On the other hand, the virtual coach is also trying to be supportive of his client, providing her with some sense of coherence in a world that is filled with complexity, unpredictability and turbulence.
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