Case Studies

Coaching Skills for Leaders

OVERVIEW:

Coaching Skills Driving Engagement and Results

Their Situation

The CEO of this global technology manufacturing organization wanted to shift the culture to be more agile and adaptive in responding to changing customer needs and requirements. Specifically, to move to a more collaborative leadership style in order to unleash the abilities of their people and creative problem solving while driving accountability.

The Methodology

The Coaching Skills for Leaders Train the Trainer Program enabled us to deliver this training to 2000 leaders in 17 countries within a period of 18 months.

The Results

The Coaching Skills for Leaders Program was recognized by the 2009 International Coach Federation PRISM Award for driving excellence and achievement through coaching.

One of the most notable post training results was the employee response on the Global Employee Opinion Survey to the question:

“The coaching I receive from my manager/supervisor is helpful in improving my performance”, yielding a 75% favorable response (benchmark: 66%) and an 89% favorable response amongst most engaged employees (benchmark: 74% in top 25% performing organizations)

Source: Kenexa 2008

Not only was this result demonstrating the impact of coaching on performance, it was drawing a direct correlation of the impact of coaching on employee engagement.

An additional follow-up survey, sent to program participants 6-12 months after program completion, indicated that 92% were actively coaching others.

When asked about the type of coaching they were doing:

  • 65% informally coaching their employees
  • 40% formally coaching their employees
  • 44% informally coaching their peers
  • 13% formally coaching peers
  • 18% informally coaching their boss
  • 3% formally coaching their boss

Note that informal coaching is considered coaching in the moment, while formal coaching involves a series of meetings structured in advance around a particular goal.

The survey participants were also asked to openly describe the benefits realized from coaching:

“Staff are more independent and able to make decisions with a higher level of confidence”

“It is enabling me to improve productivity and the speed of learning”

“Employees are now better prepared to deliver the work. Day to day life is less stressful and it is easier to have spirits up.”

“Establishing a growth road map, and coaching the team to develop the strategy and now execute has brought the team closer together and underpins a winning spirit”

“During coaching we found some hidden factors we didn’t initially see”

“Opening the mind to problem solve, helping them break barriers”

“Helps people get outside the heat of the moment to think about the situation more objectively”

“After a number of coaching sessions, my staff were more confident and better prepared for the work required on this project”

“We are executing better in Q3 and are on the path to return to profitability”

“Better communication with my employees – clear goals are established”

“Through coaching, we understood that the root cause is due to defending our individual positions and not operating as one team. The benefit we have gained is the movement forward to build trusting relationships among our team members.”

“Increased accountability”

The results of this training implementation illustrate the power of The Coaching Skills for Leaders Program and its positive impact on employee engagement and business results.