This Thirtieth issue of the Future of Coaching brings together two important themes: (1) stewardship and (2) leadership development. They are brought together within the context of nurturing the field of executive coaching. Furthermore, the essays contained in this issue build on outcomes from a summit conference on executive coaching that was held in April of 2022. Called the New Executive Coaching Summit (NECS), this 2 ½ day meeting incorporated not only a two day in-person meeting that was held at a Bed and Breakfast Inn in Harpswell Maine, but also a one-half day virtual meeting that brought together the 22 participants in the in-person meeting with 20 other senior executive coaches from North America and Europe.
Stewardship
Stewardship was one of the major themes to emerge from the NECS. There were conversations about the way in which executive coaching support their clients in becoming stewards of their own organization and field of service –thus helping to further the development of their client’s leadership capacities and performance. Focus was also turned back on the field of executive coaching itself.
How do senior executive coaches become effective stewards of not only this human service field but also of an emerging discipline (or inter-discipline) (often considered one sector of a discipline called “professional coaching”). We know that any emerging profession and discipline requires sustained stewardship by senior leaders in this profession/discipline. This stewardship, in turn, requires the building of a supportive professional culture, the creation of mentorship programs for newly minted members of this profession, and a code of ethics and conduct that guides the work of those choosing to join this profession.
Leadership Development
The second major theme, leadership development, was addressed not only at the summit but also in a survey conducted prior to the summit. Attention was given at NECS to the challenges faced by leaders in mid-21st Century organizations and to the best ways in which to help leaders prepare for these challenges. The role played by executive coaching in the enhancement of this leadership development was of immediate interest and the senior executive coaches attending the in-person and virtual sessions of this summit offered many important insights and recommendations.
Furthermore, appropriate and effective leadership was exhibited by these executive coaches themselves within the context of the summit itself. Agile and collaborative leadership were manifest in the summit and in the essays that emerged from this meeting. Documents in this issue of the Future of Coaching provide insightful accounts of this leadership.
The essays contained in this issue of the Future of Coaching address many of these requirements of stewardship. A majority of the essays also relate to the NECS activities or have been generated from the rich dialogue that took place during the in-person and virtual sessions of this summit.
Watson’s Three Domains of Change (and Stewardship)
We make use of a framework offered by Goodwin Watson, a noted expert on the management of change. Watson wrote about the ingredients needed for effective, lasting change. He identified three domains in which change can take place. One domain is structure, with the second domain being process and the third domain being attitude/culture. Eventually, all three domains need to be engaged if change is to be sustained. We offer a summary description of each domain:
Structure is all of those organizationally defined parameters and connections within and through which persons and processes in an organization carry out the purpose of the organization. It is the formal and dynamic architecture defined by the organization within which the mission of the organization is carried out.
Process is inclusive of functions and activities that are integral to achieving the results of an organization. It concerns the day-to-day interaction among those who work in and for the organization.
Attitude is the individual and corporate mental and emotional landscape upon which decisions about the organization and its process are navigated. It concerns the foundational culture of the organization, as well as the assumptions, beliefs, values and personal aspirations that animate and guide those engaged in the activities of the organization.
We suggest that the same three domains apply when considering the stewardship of any professional or field of human service. The two of us are particularly interested in the emerging profession of coaching and, with some of our colleagues have sought to “steward” this profession in several ways over the past decade. This magazine (“Future of Coaching”) represents one of these endeavors, as does the Library of Professional Coaching in which the Future of Coaching is housed. We would identify these sources of digital publications as structural changes.
Here are the essays in this issue of The Future of Coaching that align with Watson’s three domains.
Structure-Based Stewardship
We begin with an essay that describes the stewardship-based initiative that we mounted in April of 2022. This is the New Executive Coaching Summit (NECS). The structural properties of this initiative are described in the following essay:
The Intentional Design of Stewardshiup: A Case Study
We offer a second essay entitled “In Search of Stewardship” that was published in 2013. Written by Jerry Campagna, it concerns what is required of a shared governance model that engages and leverages capable teams “to steward the mission and shift strategies based on the changing economic and technological environments”. Here is a link to this essay:
Process-Based Stewardship
We return to NECS and a narrative related to a breakdown of technology at this summit meeting and the exhibit in real time of agile and committed leadership—keys to sustained and effective stewardship. This essay relates to learning associated with the technological breakdown and leadership-based breakthrough. Here is a link to this essay:
Learning about Leadership: Surprise, Agility and Collaboration
A second essay related to process-base stewardship was prepared by Gary Quehl as one in a series of LPC essays emerging from Quehl’s Sage Leadership Project. He finds his senior sage leaders musing during their interviews “about the ways they are most helpful at the strategic level of their favored organizations. They are interested in, and believe they have the greatest skill when addressing, the “big picture.” They are able to sit back and link global perspectives to specific concerns of persons with whom they are working. “ Here is a link to this essay:
Attitude/Culture-Based Stewardship
Stewardship is ultimately founded on a desire to do good FOR the world (not just be good IN the world). An essay was published recently in LPC that focuses on the greater good engaged by two professional coaches. The concept of Generativity is introduced in this essay authored by one of us [WB]. We believe that generativity is a key ingredient in motivating the engagement in any sustained stewardship initiative. Here is link to this essay.
Generativity and the Greater Good
In his 2011 LPC essay on “Integral Coaching as Servant Leadership” Lloyd Raines suggest that “we may do well to study anew the basic connections between things: What depends upon what? Who depends upon whom? Many indigenous people have understood the connections between the individual, community, nature, and cosmos in ways our culture and institutions have forgotten.” Here is a link to this essay:
Integral Coaching as Servant Leadership
Integrating All Three Domains of Stewardship
We close by offering two essays that emerged from NECS and that exemplify the engagement of stewardship at multiple levels. The first essay focuses on Leadership Development and its enhancement through engagement in Executive Coaching. This essay was prepared by one of us [WB] and is based on notes taken in the small group dialogues that were held at this summit. Here is a link to this essay:
Leadership Development and Executive Coaching: Reflections from a Summit
The second essay concerns a different area of concern, the intergenerational gap. The authors, Joan Wright and one of us [WB] offer a portrait of the special, soul-filling relationships that can be created – and have often been created—between the young and old of a society. They show how a cross-generational bridge can be built that benefits not only the younger generation and older generation, but also the “sandwich” generation that resides in “troubled water” between the young and old. This essay emerged from a conversation that took place between the two participants during NECS. Here is a link to this essay (published in the Library of Professional Psychology):
Building the Bridge: Inter-generational Generativity
We hope that you find these essays of value—as they offer diverse, multi-tiered ideas regarding how to create and sustain stewardship in a specific area of concern (such as the development of leadership) or in a particular field or discipline (such as executive coaching). We certainly need dedicated and sustained stewardship in our deeply troubled and divided world.
William Bergquist
Co-Editor
Bill Carrier
Co-Editor