Creating Coaching Cultures

The Foundation of a Coaching Culture: Coaching-Based Leadership

Recently I’ve been hearing more about coaching cultures and personally, I think many people are missing the point.  There seems to be an assumption that creating a culture of coaching implies that all leaders and managers should essentially open up their own mini-coaching practices, conducting lengthy coaching sessions with all of their employees on a regular basis.  This of course, on top of ALL the other things they have to do.  It makes me tired just thinking about it!

It takes a lot of training and practice to be able to conduct successful ongoing coaching engagements.  A well training professional coach will often have hundreds of hours of specific coach training, in addition to working with a mentor coach (or coaches).

I think we need to learn to walk before we run.  To me that means helping leaders learn how to use basic coaching skills in day-to-day conversations. That’s what we call coaching-based leadership.

What is coaching-based leadership?

Coaching-based leadership occurs when people integrate basic coaching approaches into their day-to-day conversations.  Coaching approaches such as asking questions to gain insight instead of just gathering information, listening to understand what’s stuck, and appreciating how the other person views the situation are a few of these approaches.

Invitation

As the CEO of Cylient I often work with people who are keenly interested in evolving the cultures of their organizations to be more flexible, collaborative, responsive and vital.  Places where people feel valued and inspired to contribute their creative energy towards achieving something that makes a difference. 

I call these people who seek to create cultural change “imaginal cells.”  Imaginal cells are the cells that begin the “rewiring” process that changes the DNA of the caterpillar to transform into a butterfly.  The first imaginal cells begin to find each other and clump together, creating a threshold for change.  See this link for a more detailed explanation of the role of the imaginal cell in the transformation process:  http://www.cadi.ph/Editorials/Editorial_Butterfly_Effect.htm

Imaginal cells can reside in many different places in organizations.  They are not necessarily the most senior people or the recognized thought leaders, although they may play those roles.  They are the people who see that how we’re working isn’t always working.  And they want to do something about it.