Running head: COACHING SKILLS TRAINING FOR LEADERS 1

Coaching Skills Training for Leaders:

Evaluating the challenges, design, and best practices for developing leadership
coaching skills in organizations.
Julia Heatherwick
California State University, Monterey Bay

IST 520
Dr. Tourtellotte
May 7th, 2020
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Introduction
The focus of this literature review is to identify best practices for developing
leaders to use a coach approach with their employees. The research on coaching in
organizations often focuses on working with an executive coach and the benefits of
leaders receiving one-on-one coaching to support their individual development
(McCarthy & Milner, 2013). There is an expectation in organizations for leaders to use
coaching skills as one of their leadership competencies to develop and motivate their
employees. There is an increasing interest in academia to study the best practices for
teaching leaders coaching skills. This review explores the literature on coaching skills
training for leaders using the following questions as a guide:

 Why do organizations train their leadership to use coaching skills?

 What challenges do organizations face training leaders to use coaching skills?
 What are best practices organizations can implement to improve coaching skills
in their leadership?

Why do organizations train their leadership to use coaching skills?

In a study examining 482 employees in a Korean public organization, Kim, Egan,

Kim, & Kim (2013), found empirical evidence supporting the use of leadership coaching.
Leadership coaching encourages employee understanding of performance expectations
as it pertains to their role and responsibilities.

McCarthy & Milner (2013) found leaders using a coach approach in their
leadership style increase employee buy-in and engagement in their own professional
development leading to improved employee performance and results. Employees are
likely to model similar coaching behavior if their leader uses coaching skills and has
created a positive and trusting relationship with them.

Grant and Hartley (2013) note many organizations recognize the value of their
leaders using a coach approach and implement coach training as stand-alone courses
or as part of a larger leadership training initiative. Organizations recognize the value of
leaders using coaching skills and invest considerable time and money in the
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development of their leaders. Leaders often face challenges in transferring the skills
learned in a coaching skills class back on the job.

What challenges do organizations face training leaders to use coaching skills?

With a growing interest in teaching leaders to coach, there is an endless supply

of vendors willing to sell their program to organizations. Grant and Hartley (2013)
identified significant challenges organizations face is identifying a development
approach for their leaders. The authors’ research shows training initiatives often lack a
theoretical framework and use of adult learning theory in the design and development of
the program. The authors caution organizations of a high probability of program failure if
coaching is not visible as a company value and senior leaders are not modeling the
desired coaching behaviors. If an organization does little to create a supportive
infrastructure and senior leaders do not champion the work and live the values,
according to Ellinger, Andrea, & Bostrom (2002), the organization will not see long-term
success of the leadership development coaching initiative.

The authors, Ellinger et al., (2002), identified an organization’s leadership

development program can focus too heavily on building new coaching behaviors in
leaders, but do little to address the mindset, beliefs, and self-awareness of the leader
and their role in facilitating learning with their employees.

Leaders may be hesitant to use coaching skills or change their way of

communicating to their employees if they haven’t personally had a positive experience
being coached by an internal or external professional coach or witness senior leaders
modeling coaching skills. Additionally, a leader can be confused as to when to be a
coach and when to manage their employees. The lack of support and feedback on their
coaching skills performance can discourage leaders from using the skills and fall back
into a former state of managing employees (McCarthy & Milner, 2013).

What are best practices organizations can implement to improve coaching skills
in their leadership?

Prior to implementing a coaching program, organizations should review their

culture and values. Is their organization placing priority in using a coach approach?
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Does senior leadership support coaching skills as a key leadership behavior? Does
senior leadership invest in their own development and model coaching behaviors? It is
essential to the success of a coaching program to be built on a solid coaching culture
foundation with support from all stakeholders.

For leaders to gain confidence and comfort using newly developed coaching
skills, Grant (2010) identified it can take up to three to six months of practice and on the
job application. The following best practices identified by Grant & Hartley (2013), show
the most innovation in evidence-based leader as coach program design and program
outcomes. Their research can be categorized into four main themes. They include the
program design, program content, program participants, and on-going support required
after the program concludes.

Design

Organizations should work with internal and external coaching experts to develop
leadership coaching programs. “The workshop program must be strongly evidence-
based, as well as drawing on the best available research about what is effective in
coaching. This means that the workshop itself should employ the key principles of
evidence-based adult learning” (Clark, 2010 as cited in Grant & Hartley, 2013, p. 103).
The design of the program should be created to ensure desired learning outcomes are
met. In the research study comparing the impact of a 13-week program and a two-day
intensive covering the same coaching concepts by Grant (2007), the author discoverer
different outcomes were achieved based on the spacing and chunking of the program
content. Both programs enhanced coaching skills, however, the 13-week program
enhanced coaching skills and emotional intelligence measured by before and after
assessments.

Content

The content of the program should be leader-focused and have real-world

application to the challenges the participants encounter day-to-day (McCarthy & Milner,
2013). A theoretical framework should be apparent to the participants in the program
but free of coaching jargon. Participants should easily make clear connections to how
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they will use the knowledge and skills in their daily work. The participants should walk
away with the ability to distinguish formal and informal coaching and see distinctions
between coaching for skill development, coaching for performance improvement, and
coaching for professional development. Customizing the program with internal branding
and connecting to company values and strategic vision will encourage leadership buy-in
and program participation.

Participants

Buy-in for new programs starts with the selection of program participants. As the
Grant and Hartley point out, a key strategy for program success is identifying early
adopters that have a positive influence on company culture. In the early stages, it is
important to have participants who want to be in the program and are motivated to learn
coaching skills. In a study exploring the impact of using a personal case study in a
leadership coaching program, Grant & Hartley (2014), found an increase in coaching
skills application after the course if leaders created their own personal case study. The
leader would identify a current challenge and use it throughout the course to create an
action plan on how their new coaching skills would assist them with their case study
challenge. The case study process included a personal action plan to help them apply
what they learned during the course when they returned to their normal operations. The
research of Milner & McCarthy (2018) also supports tailoring the program to fit the
needs of the participants stating, “Training should provide managers with strategies to
overcome the challenges associated with leaders adopting a coaching role.”

Support

The final best practice theme identified by the authors included intentional
strategies for post-program support. A key success factor of program implementation is
having a competent human resources team or learning and development team
passionate about coaching and willing to assist the leaders in application of skills. They
can assist with a seamless program implementation and maintain enthusiasm and
support by key stakeholders. Additionally, organizing a post-session peer-coaching,
mentor-coaching, and coaching supervision support structure is critical to moving the
leader from knowledge of how to coach to applying it coaching on-the-job. The research
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of Milner & McCarthy (2018) identifies coaching supervision and mentoring to help
leaders identify how and when to use coaching skills. They found leaders want more
assistance after training programs on identifying when to use coaching and when to use
another leadership skill.

Conclusions

The review of the literature on coaching skills training for leaders shows the
complexity of creating a coaching culture. The literature also provides an easy structure
to follow to create a leadership coaching program. It is well researched and supported
that if organizations want their leaders to use a coach approach when leading and
developing their employees, an investment in a comprehensive evidence-based
coaching skills program is necessary. It is important for organizations to clearly state
coaching performance expectations and for senior leaders be a positive and supportive
role-model for their leadership team. The program design, program content, program
participants, and post-program support should be developed based on the organization
values and the needs of the leadership participants. Coaching skills programs should
include theoretical underpinnings that are easily relatable to the real work of leaders.
Not analyzed in the research is preparing the leaders to participate in the program and
preparing their leadership to support them during and after the coaching skills training.
Additionally, analysis wasn’t provided for post-program support including internal coach
support, peers coaching, mentoring, coach supervision, and technology assisted
support. Significant attention was placed on creating a coaching culture, stakeholder
involvement, course design, and course content leaving room for additional research on
how to provide pre and post program support for leaders to prepare, learn, and apply
their new coaching skills.
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References

Ellinger, Andrea D, and Robert P Bostrom. "An Examination of Managers' Beliefs about
Their Roles as Facilitators of Learning." Management Learning 33.2 (2002): 147-79.
Web.

Grant, Anthony. "Enhancing Coaching Skills and Emotional Intelligence through

Training." Industrial and Commercial Training 39.5 (2007): 257-66. Web.

Grant, Anthony M, and Margie Hartley. "Developing the Leader as Coach: Insights,
Strategies and Tips for Embedding Coaching Skills in the Workplace." Coaching: An
International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice 6.2 (2013): 102-15. Web.

Grant, Anthony M, and Margie Hartley. “Exploring the Impact of Participation in a

Leader as Coach Programme Using the Personal Case Study Approach.” The
Coaching Psychologist, 10(2), (2014): 51–58. Web.

Kim, S., Egan, T. M., Kim, W., & Kim, J. The impact of managerial coaching behavior on
employee work-related reactions. Journal of Business and Psychology, 28(3),
(2013): 315-330. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10869-013-9286-9

McCarthy, G., & Milner, J. Managerial coaching: Challenges, opportunities and training.
The Journal of Management Development, 32(7), (2013): 768-779.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JMD-11-2011-0113

Milner, Julia, Mccarthy, Grace, and Milner, Trenton. "Training for the Coaching Leader:
How Organizations Can Support Managers." The Journal of Management
Development 37.2 (2018): 188-200. Web.