Bill: I find that the higher up people are in an organization, the more difficult it is to take the feedback they get and trust that feedback. Also, it tends to come from more and more sources. I find typically what I’m doing is helping people try to understand and trust the kind of feedback they are getting and how they use that to improve their own performance.
Mary Beth: I’m still talking to leaders about really basic stuff like clear agreements: telling your teams what decision making style you’re using – is it majority vote, is it autocratic, is it consultative? It’s amazing how much everybody says: “Yeah, yeah, I know that.” But they don’t use it. And the other one is leaders who are constantly misdiagnosing lack of role clarity when they see their direct reports fighting. They think it’s an interpersonal conflict where it’s actually that the leader has not been clear about the lines of demarcation between the two roles. You’d think that was really obvious stuff, but it’s still going on so we’re going to have job security because of it.
Jeannine: There’s a subset of what Mary Beth just said that I find as a theme. It is that the decisions are commonly changed in the hallway after a meeting. Who’s been lobbying, who brings more data back into the CEO asking him or her to change their mind. This is a very complex and interesting theme that we see almost constantly.
Bob: I would say the number one theme I see is trust in the organization. We get countless executives that say, “The survey says that the number one issue in our organization is trust. So how do we get them to trust us?”
About Client Expectations
Moderator (Linda): What do you find your clients expect from their executive coaching experience?
Mary Beth: This is a real obvious one to me. I keep hearing over and over again how lonely leaders are and that they need frank feedback from us. Where we are not intimidated by their executive presence and we’re willing to give them tough feedback. They are grateful for the truth. Even if they balk at first, even if they get irritated, I find that they are so grateful for it.
Klaus: I think in my experience they definitely expect a certain amount of frankness from us. They want us to be very straight with them and not play any games or be someone else in front of their subordinates. So, to really convey a consistent mirror image that is not a contradiction is vitally important. I treat them with deep respect and build trust. Also, always be clear. I think success in coaching in my experience depends on absolute clarity on our part as coaches.
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