| | 2006 Leadership Themes
As 2006 came to a close, we recently had the opportunity to reflect on the work we had done over the previous twelve months. One of the statistics that jumped out was that, over the course of the past year, Suntiva had provided executive coaching-related services to over 100 different executives. These ranged in title from CEO, CIO, CFO, and various levels of Vice President, to Senior Executive Service (SES) and GS-15 leaders in the Federal government. And as an added perspective, our Chairman and Founder, Dr. Hany Malik, provided coaching and training to “soon-to-be-coaches” as a faculty member of the Georgetown Leadership Coaching Program.
For all of our coaching efforts, our methodology employs a “roundtable” approach that allows both our consultants and coaches to share insights and perspectives across our many clients, thereby bringing the “best thinking” of our organization to each of our customer engagements. This is fairly unique in coaching circles – where many of today’s coaches are independent consultants, or are very loosely associated with “coaching networks” (but still largely work on their own). We believe strongly that this brings our coaching to another level – beyond the thinking and individual perspectives of a single coach – while always in a way that preserves our strict confidentially agreement with the client. And as an added bonus, it gives us broad insights into current themes, trends, and “top of mind” issues for business leaders.
So in this Newsletter, we thought we would share a few of these current themes – again, within the constraints of client confidentiality. Some food for thought, in no particular order:
Accelerated Change. Not surprisingly, many of our coaching assignments involve the issue of leading change – whether it’s a change in leadership, strategy, or structure. In the past year, we have noticed an increased focus on coaching as a lever to improve the “speed” of change. Leaders are seeing the value of being able to accelerate the change process – in ways that also ensure that changes “stick.” Changes that might take 6 months or more (like a major reorganization) can be done both faster and more effectively when leaders apply coaching as a component of the overall program. Proactive leaders (or at least those hiring us for coaching…) no longer have the time or patience to wait for results to come at their “natural” pace.
Chains of Command. We seem to be spending much more time (versus 2 or 3 years ago) in helping leaders work effectively with bosses and peers. We see this being a result of several factors, including the reduced tenure of executives in current roles, the increased complexity of organizations (more matrices, “dotted line” relationships, etc.), and the increasingly short-term (quarter-to-quarter) mindset of external stakeholders. In fact, many of our coaching clients look to us to help broker and/or facilitate conversations with their bosses or peers as another way to brainstorm and find strategic insights.
The Evolving Role of HR. As many HR departments attempt to move from tactical and transactional to more strategic (especially in businesses where the primary assets are the people), we have seen several cases where Business Unit leaders are struggling with the change – especially where functions that they previously owned/performed are now rolled to corporate. Hiring a new VP for your business has added dimensions and issues when it is part of a broader “Strategic Human Capital” program that forces the leader to assess not only the fit for their own business, but numerous, broader aspects as well. This may be of long-term benefit to the company, but seems to be causing frustration and delays for current leaders (who are still being held to the same quarterly metrics…).
The Art of Communication. A seemingly simple topic, but it continues to surprise us how often our clients look for advice and guidance in improving their communication skills. As face-to-face meetings become less common, and the avenues for communication continue to expand – instant messaging, blogs, world-wide video conferencing, etc. – leaders must not only craft the message, but also the proper vehicle(s) for delivery. We have found this to be an increasing area of focus (and need…), especially for leaders of widely dispersed teams.
Leading the Business and Leading the People. More and more leaders are using coaching as a means to better align their ability to lead both the business and the people. There seems to be an increased desire for coaches to be equally adept on both sides of the fence – in addressing root cause drivers and personal dynamics within the leadership team, but doing so in the context of achieving critical business outcomes. There is much less patience for approaches that help teams “play nice” – but have no relevance or obvious applicability to delivering actual business results. High performance is no longer the end goal; individual and/or team effectiveness is increasingly recognized as a means to the desired end results for the business.
Summary
Clearly, there are dozens of other topics that have surfaced over the past year; these are just a few that seem to be regular issues in our roundtable discussions. Hopefully one or two of these (at least) will spur some thoughts, or maybe even action, to address lingering issues within your own organization.
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