Rico Poon

What do you see as the role of the coach? 

The role of the coach is to guide clients through the complex process of change and facilitate what is inevitable (Bacon & Voss, 2012). Coaching is most effectively employed when it is used to do one or more of the following:

• support individual and organizational change performance, possibly by increasing congruence with the mission;
• provide adequate support to enable personal transformation and career role transition;
• support the development of future leaders for the organization via enhanced ability for strategic thinking, providing vision and direction, accelerating change, intellectual honesty, integrity motivating and energizing people, teamwork, and partnering, influencing, delivering results, valuing all people, and/or developing people;
• provide an adequate container to address a specific problem area or challenge; and
• support and facilitate the creation of an organizational culture that values learning, creativity, and continuous improvement.

What do you see as the responsibility of the client? 

Since the coaching process is two-way, a dialog, the person being coached has to hold up his or her end of the bargain; otherwise, coaching is not effective. Therefore, the responsibility of a coachee should be an active listener. Trying to understand what the coach is saying, probing, and digging deeper to make sure what is being heard and what is being said—playing back what the coach is saying to clarify.  Asking for clarification, asking for examples are all critical for the coachee in listening. Second, commitment on the part of the coachee is critical.  The coachee must be committed to be coached and engaged in the process.

Additionally, the coachee must commit to and own whatever agreements or changes may result.  Coaching is about reinforcing good behaviors–looking at how you might do better, changing incorrect behaviors, trying new things, developing new skills.  If the coachee does nothing after being coached, then a tremendous opportunity has been lost.

What do you see as the 3-5 essential “active” ingredients that will make you and your approach to coaching be effective?

The “active ingredients” of executive coaching include:

1. The clients and their readiness to change, ability to learn, coping styles, skill needs, personality, and developmental goals (Hernez-Broome & Boyce, 2011).
2. The coach-client relationship includes establishing and maintaining rapport, building and maintaining trust), positive expectancies (Hernez-Broome & Boyce, 2011).
3. Theory and techniques point out how various psychological theories such as cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, adult-learning, and person-centered theories provide different, potentially complementary, contributions to triggering these active ingredients for coaching success (Hernez-Broome & Boyce, 2011).

References

Bacon, T. R., & Voss, L. (2012). Adaptive Coaching: The art and practice of a client-centered approach to performance improvement. Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Hernez-Broome, G. & Boyce, G. (2011). Advancing executive coaching: Setting the course for successful leadership coaching. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons.