If Susan Stracker were aligned with the alternative culture, she would feel most comfortable working with clients who want to share freely their feelings and their life issues inside and outside the workplace. They are also open to new learning and critically reviewing their own performance. Performance appraisals are viewed as doors that can be opened on behalf of ongoing learning and improvement (rather than as modes of behavioral control—as is often view of those aligned with the advocacy culture). Susan and her fellow coaches who associate with this culture often embrace many untested assumptions about the inherent desire of all men and women to attain their own personal maturation. Susan does not just want her client to think systemically; she also wants her client to reflect on their own aspirations for the institution – their own vision, their own future in the institution. the alignment between their own values and those of the institution.
Both coaches and leaders who embrace this alternative culture wish to assist in the development of others in the institution (or even the broader community). They conceive of the coaching enterprise as the encouragement of potential for cognitive, affective, physical and spiritual development among all members of the institution – not just the formal leaders. These coaches do not want to just assist a client become more skillful in working with subordinates or in successfully completing a specific task – as would a coach oriented toward the managerial culture. They want their client to ask fundamental questions and find answers to these deeper questions: Why work with subordinates in a specific manner? Why successfully complete this task? Of what ultimate importance is the work I do and what do I sacrifice in my life to complete this work in a successful manner?
The Advocacy Culture
Leadership Values: Serving the Underserved/Expanding Access to the Decision-Making Table
Criteria of Leadership Success: Diversity of Perspectives Entertained and Equity of Treatment for all Members of Organization and Members of Community/Society/
Coaching Orientation: Orientation to quasi-political strategies and advocacy-related perspectives on coaching
Nature of Coaching Clientele: Advocacy oriented leaders (often in nonprofit organizations)
Criteria of Coaching Status: Evidence of diversity and equitable among the clients being served
Nature of Coaching Impact: Successfully fighting against institutional control of personal identity and collective decision-making processes. Influence regarding who is at the table to identify and measure institutional effectiveness?
Coaches and the users of coaching se1vices who are aligned with the advocacy culture conceive of coaching as a vehicle for the establishment of equitable and egalira1ian policies and procedures regarding the distribution of resources and benefits in the institution. Rosinski views this as the equality end of the “hierarchy/ equality” continuum and at the universalist end of the “universalist/ participant” continuum. Rosinski defines equality as an organizational arrangement in which people are equals, who often happen to play different roles. The universalist framework is one in which all cases should be treated in the same universal manner, adopting common processes for consistency and economies of scale. Those who embrace this culture often have been associated in their past life with the formulation and/ or enforcement of HR (human resources) policies and procedures (serving as “policy police” in a large corporation or government agency).
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