How do leadership and coaching work together?

Based on descriptions of coaching skills from Kimsey-House, Kimsey-House, Sandahl, & Whitworth (2011), Rogers (2012), Collins (2009), Stoltzfus (2005), & Bennet & Harper (2008), and based on Winston & Patterson’s (2006) integrative definition of leadership, the following table gives comparative skills of coaching and leadership:

Coaching skills	Leadership skills
Focusing on the coachee. Listening and "harvesting": (articulating, clarifying, meta-view, metaphor, recovery, clearing, reframing. making distinctions). Asking powerful questions. Asking permission.	Focusing on the company’s vision. Mobilizing. Training and equipping. Modeling. Empowering. Energizing. Personal renewal and growth.
Skills shared by coaching and leadership
Selecting. Influencing and intuition (intruding and blurting). Building a relationship of trust and respect (honesty, humility, and credibility). Service. Goal setting. Requesting and guiding. Brainstorming Challenging, assessing, supporting (acknowledging progress and championing). Bottom-lining. Healing.

                                              Table 1: Comparative skills of coaching and leadership

Reading this table inevitably raises the question: "Is there even a clear line between leadership and coaching? The answer is "no". How then do both processes work together?

One function of effective leadership is to develop followers. Therefore coaching can become a powerful tool at the service successful leaders. Actually good coaching with an alignment between the company’s vision and each follower’s personal dream can create a powerful leadership model. Here are two examples:

1. Leaders “influence [followers] by humbly conveying a prophetic vision of the future in clear terms that resonates with the follower(s) beliefs and values in such a way that the follower(s) can understand and interpret the future into present-time action steps” (Winston & Patterson, 2006, p.7). Good coaching will help the manager identify follower’s beliefs and values, and will facilitate the process of selection, positioning and alignment, and thus create effective teams.
2. When managers only focus on their views, they deprive their team form followers’ insights and engagement, and isolate themselves. Good coaching enhances commitment through listening, intuition and positive discourse, and causes followers to expend their energies (physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual) willingly and enthusiastically (Winston & Patterson, 2006) for the pursuit of the organization’s goals. Can you see the power of getting followers to give their best this way? That is what leaders can achieve when they coach followers.

Coaching skills are not necessarily inherent to leadership. Some of them could actually be in conflict with good leadership. For example, coaches ask questions, avoid offering advice and solutions, and seldom request actions. Most times they only create structures to support solutions developed by coachees. Leaders for their part request and advice more although they also consider followers’ opinions. On the other hand, some coaching skills are strongly useful to both coaching and leadership, like bottom-lining. Kimsey-House et al. (2011) note that coaches go to the bottom line, coachees do the talking. In leadership also, bottom-lining confers and enhances leadership power.

References

Bennett, J. L., Harper, M. (2008). Executive Coaching Readiness Assessment Scale. Presented at Academy of Management. Anaheim, CA.

Kimsey-House, H., Kimsey-House, K., Sandahl, P., Whitworth, L. (2011). Co-active coaching: Changing businesses, transforming lives (3^rd ed.). Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Rogers, J. (2012). Coaching skills: A handbook. : Berkshire, England: McGraw Hill.

Stoltzfus, T. (2005). Leadership coaching: The disciplines, skills, and heart of a christian coach [Kindle edition]. Available from www.amazon.com

Winston, B., & Patteson, K. (2006). An Integrative Definition of Leadership. International Journal of Leadership Studies 1(2), 6-66.