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FOUR ESSENTIAL WAYS THAT
COACHING
CAN HELP
EXECUTIVES
FOUR ESSENTIAL WAYS THAT
COACHING
CAN HELP
EXECUTIVES
Robert Witherspoon
Randall P. White
Center for Creative Leadership
Greensboro, North Carolina
The Center for Creative Leadership is an international, nonprofit educational institution founded in 1970 to advance the understanding, practice, and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide. As a part of this mission, it publishes books and reports that aim to contribute to a general process of inquiry and understanding in which ideas related to leadership are raised, exchanged, and evaluated. The ideas presented in its publications are those of the author or authors.
CENTER FOR CREATIVE LEADERSHIP
© 1997 Center for Creative Leadership
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.
CCL No. 175
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Witherspoon, Robert.
Four essential ways that coaching can help executives / Robert Witherspoon, Randall P. White.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
ISBN 978-1-882197-26-2 (print-on-demand)
1. Business consultants. 2. Mentoring in business. 3. Executive ability. 4. Executives. I. White, Randall P. II. Title.
HD69.C6W57 1997
658.4'07124—dc21
97-1375
CIP
For our fathers
Bob Witherspoon, business executive and enthusiastic entrepreneur
and
George White, military officer and civil servant
We thank you for your constant encouragement and your leadership by example
Table of Contents
Coaching for the Executive’s Agenda
Conclusion: Some Similarities in Coaching
Preface
This paper represents our thinking about executive coaching: what it is, its power in creating behavioral change, and how it can be used by executives and their organizations.
Each of us comes from a different tradition. The first author began in private practice over twenty-five years ago as a consultant and acquired significant business experience along the way, from building small business start-ups to leadership roles in large organizations. (Before founding Performance & Leadership Development, he was a partner in Arthur Andersen.) The second author started in applied social-science research with a focus on executive learning and leadership and has published widely on these and related topics. (He was formerly in charge of executive coaching and customized programs at the Center for Creative Leadership.)
Along the way, each of us gained experience in designing and delivering executive development programs, and each of us held various managerial positions in the course of our careers prior to offering executive coaching as a service. While we work separately, we sometimes compare notes, and over the course of such comparisons have come to spend long hours discussing the roles that coaches can play and the various situations in which these roles unfold.
We discuss here a continuum of roles and situations with several examples. In writing about individuals with whom we have worked, we have tried to remain true to our commitment to keep data private, while at the same time reporting representative coaching situations. To balance these concerns, some changes in the examples were made for this paper by altering characteristics
