We provide a summary of the three organizational coaching strategies in Table One, as well as offering a brief description of the models associated with each of the three strategies in the following sections of this chapter. While we will refer to “the Behavioral Coach,” “the Decisional coach” or “the Aspirational coach” throughout the chapter, the three strategies will, in actuality, weave through a coaching assignment as needed, at different times. A coach, for example, who is working with an executive for the first 90 days of having taken on a new global function, will wear these different coaching strategy hats along the way. He might be a Behavioral coach when discussing how to forge key relationships and how to pull together a unified team – and do both while braving the physical distances among his far-flung team members and stakeholders. He will have Decisional coaching sessions when his client evaluates, for example, how to trade off resources between competing interests, or make a call on the projects that need to be discontinued in the face of resistance by their owners, or re-examine his leadership self-concept when faced with a change management challenge. Along the way, more profoundly personal lines of Aspirational inquiry may be called for, as when the client encounters a values conflict with or among his peers or team members, when he evaluates whether to make a courageous but unpopular ethical stand, or when he momentarily doubts his career calling when faced with a seemingly disastrous set-back. It is critical for the coach to be conscious of which “coaching strategy hat” he is wearing at different times, in order to utilize the full range of methods available to him.
An Overview of Coaching Strategy I: Behavioral Coaching
We will begin with the three models that relate specifically to an employee’s behavior: engagement, empowerment and opportunity coaching.
I. a. Engagement Coaching
This form of Behavioral coaching focuses on the complex and often quite subtle processes involved in any interpersonal relationship. As the name implies, this form of coaching is most useful with issues around important interpersonal relationships in which much is at stake. This relationship might involve a subordinate, a superior (boss), a colleague, a board member or a customer. The engagement coach typically works with her client on one or more of three communication approaches: disclosure, feedback and helping. First, the coach will ensure an assessment of the client’s own preferred modes of interpersonal relationship. Second, the coach will engender introspection and reflection. Third, with the coach’s assistance, the client will try out (rehearse) a specific interpersonal engagement. The coach may do some teaching and/or modeling in supporting this performance.
I. b. Empowerment Coaching
While engagement coaching focuses on the one-on-one relationships in a client’s work life, empowerment coaching focuses on the relationships between a client and the groups in which she participates as a leader, facilitator or member. The term empowerment is employed to emphasize the role of this type of Behavioral coaching in helping both a client and the group of which the client is a member be not only more effective, but also more influential in determining their own mode of operation and their own destination. This second mode of Behavioral coaching often involves reflection with a client about her way of operating in the group and examination regarding how she relates to her own power and voice. The coaching session might also include assessment of the client’s preferred roles and modes of interacting in a group. Occasionally, the coach will observe a client’s work in the actual group setting.
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