Developing a Coaching Culture at Weatherford International
Richard Pelzer
University of the Rockies
Abstract
In today’s context of the fast-paced and ever changing workplace, the most successful leaders are those who face new challenges with current and relevant solutions. The most successful approach to the current demands is to train and develop leaders into coaches. Leaders who coach can balance employee concerns with people performance and the goals of the company. This type of leadership can cultivate an organizational culture that is highly motivated and higher performers. A coaching culture blurs the hierarchical chain of command and replaces it with a stronger informal network of increased performers who communicate
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Recent turnovers in management and the loss of talented employees have significantly deprecated organizational performance. In the past, Weatherford leaders and managers perceived coaching to be something for the elite. All too often coaching was confined to the boardroom and carried out on a one-to-one basis. Typically managers were only exposed to coaching through skills workshops. Coaching and personal development was never offered to employees at the lower end of the hierarchical ladder. Weatherford’s company culture has been evolved in dysfunctional and outdated competitive business climates which created obstacles for the organization to be successful and staying competitive. Past leadership created low trust, ineffective teamwork, poor communication and high turnover. This type of leadership was directive, dictatorial, autocratic, and task oriented which denigrated employee knowledge and understanding of the nature, purpose, and other intricacies of the tasks at hand.
Needs
Two important developments regarding the need for a coaching culture practice at Weatherford International is that beyond developing individual leaders as in-the-moment team coaches, group coaches, and coaching mentors, a coaching based approach should be used as a comprehensive change initiatives (Chao, 2009). Secondly, the coaching and
More and more companies are using coaching to create a pipeline of leaders and to develop managers who can coach their own teams and help develop their employees’ career paths (Gurchiek, 2016). For Walmart and other organizations, leadership development is critical for driving revenue, engaging employees, and achieving and maintaining high overall productivity. Walmart could utilize their coaching initiative not only to improve employee performance but to groom and train their future leaders in soft skills to assist in the development of team members in reaching their full potential (Lunken,
A concept of this cohesiveness that leaders practice within virtual or group dynamics is coaching. Coaching is a direct leadership relationship of shared leadership or traditional leadership being a formal leader in virtual and non-virtual groups and teams. Kouzes & Posner (2012) states that “there is a direct connection between self-confidence and competence…you need to coach
First published in 1987, The Leadership Challenge is a guide for becoming leader. The book received many awards and its above two million copies are internationally sold. The book teaches principles of leadership that apply whether the leader is running a sports team or a fortune 500 organization. The book includes stories and examples of many leaders from micro to macro level (Founders and Authors, 2013). The basic leadership principles can be adopted by anyone to challenge status quo and increase leader productivity multifold. The book tells about the flow and hierarchy of values too (Machedo, 2013). One can use the guide without an instructor to develop leadership traits.
Coaching is another role of a leader. The definition of coaching is "one who instructs or trains" (Coaching, 2017). For example, a coach will not only provide training, but also advise and provide guidance. To put this role into perspective, imagine a Soldier on a firing range. The soldier has been trained to successfully fire that weapon, but with coaching, they will be guided to sharpen their fundamental skills, thus improving their
The UK Coaching Framework is led by Sports Coach UK. Key partners, such as Governing Bodies, will act as the lead agencies in implementing the framework working together with communities, schools and local authorities. The framework will equip coaches with the necessary skills to support participants at all stages of their development. Enhancing the quality of coaching will be a fundamental aim of the framework.
My exposure and engagement with the materials and ideas presented in Coaching for Performance have influenced my leadership philosophy immensely. A larger understanding of the impact that coaching can have on myself and those I work with has bolstered my belief in the weaving of servant and situational leadership styles and how I can approach challenges in a new manner by embracing a coaching perspective. The goals presented in this paper are a starting point in my journey to explore how I can explore avenues to implement a coaching culture in my present school, and district. I know this will be a complex task, but I have been exposed to a variety of resources and concepts not only from the course material and interactions with my peers but
“A process through which executives are helped to measurably improve their performance and personal effectiveness while reducing stress. The coaching experience offers the rare opportunity to stand back and to take a fresh look at the experiences and assumptions of a lifetime. It facilitates enhanced self-awareness that is required for sustaining positive change (2016)”.
Managing people in this day and age is now more about development and empowerment than it is about command and control. Increasingly, managers are taking a majority of the responsibility for ensuring that their staff members always have the knowledge and skills necessary to perform at the highest level possible. Managers are doing more coaching than ever before. For this reason, it is imperative that effective leaders master the skills necessary to become knowledgeable teachers and successful coaches because internal coaching is very important for the success of organizations. According to Manning & Curtis (2012), a learning organization uses six key ingredients to discover, create, and transfer knowledge and skills (P. 350). They are constantly in search of new knowledge and ways to apply it, review both successes and failures, benchmark and implement best practices, share lessons learned, reward innovation, and encourage experienced and new employees to learn to together (Manning & Curtis, 2012). Leaders who follow this tactic have a respectful attitude, build self-esteem, use the correct medium or combination of techniques, uses coaching rather than judging, and encourages repetitive practice to build proficiency (Manning & Curtis, 2012). Mary, my current manager, is a very capable
One of the key competencies organizations need to develop now is a capacity to execute change effectively, across complex, chaotic, diverse and widely spread systems. Most organizations have a poor record in this area, and the need to improve this capacity is getting more urgent every year. The Human Resources (HR) team – a.k.a. People and Performance, People and Culture, etc. – is charged with driving the human side of change. Whether it is trying to prepare people for change, executing new processes, or dealing with the fallout if change doesn’t go well, HR departments provide both the backbone and the arms and legs of any organizational change initiative. However the challenge is that HR is being downsized like never before. The people left in HR are strategic, not necessarily having the time to focus on driving change. To make this more difficult, HR is focused on not just one or two but five, ten, even twenty different change initiatives at once. These people need help; specifically they need help from people who know how to help them facilitate change. There is greater pressure on people to perform, faster pace of change, more uncertainty requiring thinking resources, creative workers requiring new resources and other development options becoming less viable. So, it’s natural that they should turn to coaches.
The evolution of my appreciation of the facets of Coaching for Performance and its place in applied leadership has been transformative. The initial perspectives shared in my first paper on the personal significant learning about the practice of coaching, although still pertinent, have been refashioned to reflect a more coherent and clear understanding of what my leadership style entails along with a more concrete explanation of how coaching can support and enhance my effectiveness as a leader. This has been influenced by my better understanding of coaching for performance as a way to create partnerships based on equality and trust that can focus on how to solve problems rather than the problems themselves.
Employees will buy into coaching when they understand why the process is in place, how data will be collected, and truly believe sessions are designed to improve them and make them more valuable assets to the company. Without employee buy in, you are back to top-down management and evaluations instead of the refining and developing of internal
Being a leader has many advantages and disadvantages. Could coaching an employee be helpful for all involved? Being in a management position there is the need to be the devil’s advocate and approaching employees in a delicate manner to engage in the conversation that something issues need to change. What is the definition of coaching when working with adults in a workplace? Do managers need to be coached on how to coach? These are items will be addressed in this essay for anyone who is in or is planning on being in a managerial role. All the skills needed to provide a safe and healthy work environment for every employee.
Involve executives who are passionate about coaching. This is regarded to be the apparent support and modeling of coaching by the top leaders and usually goes a long way towards the creation of a coaching culture. It is believed that this kind of culture should also be adopted by the mentoring team. Hence, the lack of executive-level sponsorship can be one of the obstacles for effective
Leadership coaches should have the understanding of leadership theory, models and best practice. They also need to understand the organization from both theoretical and practical perspectives, in which the former including the organizational behavior and dynamics, the latter including the organizational performance, culture and policies. Furthermore, the leadership coaches should understand the context of their work so that not only they can improve the coaching process but also build coaching relationship. This is supported by a study, which has shown that it is critical in achieving coaching goals and building relationship when the coaches understand the organizational environment.
This literature review contributes to the activities of the coaching process in ‘EXT 8888’ Medical Device Company by reviewing current good practice in coaching and will cover the following: Background and development of coaching, key areas of coaching, coaching methodologies, coaching models, coaching and leadership development, best practice in the areas of workplace coaching. The output of this review will examine the relevance of coaching in the context of people development and will contribute to the knowledge of how to achieve a uniform approach to Team Leader development within EXT 8888 Cork by using coaching techniques and the development of a coaching plan.