Prior to the last wave of downsizings, a number of organizations were getting serious about using a coaching approach to leadership development.  The bad economy has had four effects on the coaching boom.

 1. In some companies managers were trained to move from a judging to a coaching approach in performance appraisal and day-to-day employee development.  Downsizing has caused many of these programs to flounder or be cancelled.

 2. Some HR professionals – mostly from the training and development function – were working as internal coaches –many with great results.  Again, downsizing and the shift in paradigm from employees as long term assets to be developed to short term costs to be reduced, has eroded many of these efforts.

 3. External coaches seemed to be the best fit for top managers.  It is difficult for an internal coach to balance her/his employee status with the top executive coaching role.  It is also difficult for top managers to level and make themselves vulnerable to internal coaches.  External executive coaches – at least those who are any good – seem to be surviving the recession quite well.

 4. The real recession oriented toll on coaching is at lower levels.  Good coaching at the middle management level has a tremendous impact on personal development and ultimately the bottom line of firms.  Unfortunately the recession has eroded many of these efforts

As one who has both served as a coach to a number of executives and have been “coached” myself, I am happy to report that executive coaching can be extremely beneficial.  However, far too many executives have been burned.  It is amazing that prudent, logical, and analytical executives enter into a coaching relationship without the caution that they use in other aspects of their business life. 

The most dishonest and harmful example, is when a boss “suggests” an executive may need some executive coaching but isn’t clear on why or what outcomes he is seeking.  This is often linked with a “suggested” coach, who the executive later discovers has previously had private a conversation with his boss.  This collusion between the coach and

the boss of the person who is to be coached is a significant red flag.  I have seen many cases where the boss sees major performance issues but has not adequately communicated them to the person being coached.  In other situations, the boss had already made up his mind to terminate the person being coached and was using the coaching process to assuage his conscience or to document his due diligence.  Here are three remedial strategies for executives.

Don’t blindly accept the suggestion that you need a coach

Do some digging.  Have the courage to ask some questions, to confront your boss.  Why does he think you need a coach?  What needs to change?   Is their a message the boss can’t or won’t deliver?

Be assertive of your client status

If you do decide to work with a coach be assertive of your client status.  If possible, choose your own coach.  At least get veto power over the suggested coach.  Whomever you use, make sure she or he sees you, not the boss as the client.  It is much more professional if you pay the tab from your budget.  If there is a corporate cost center, at least get visibility as to what the organization is paying.

Insist on what I call the three C’s of a coachee’s rights

• Clarity that you, not the organization is the client
• Confidentially that all information is yours alone and there are no reports to the boss that you don’t know about and agree should take place.
• Control that you are in charge.  If the coach is not helping (your definition of helping) you have the right to terminate the relationship.

Many organizations forget that people in supervisory roles are also employees and not immune to survivor issues simply because they manage others.  “Physician, heal thyself,” is the rule and for those in leadership roles, the first priority is to deal with their own survivor issues. The next thing they need to do is help their employees.

 Leadership in a time of paradigm change is more of a helping relationship than of command and control management. Leaders in many organizations find themselves in a bind. The only way to deal with the emotional blockage that constitutes survivor sickness is to get employees to talk about their feelings, yet this necessary catharsis is seen by many organizations as disloyal or coddling employee complaining. 

 To be effective a boss needs to have the courage to take a risk.  In some organizations this has taken the form of group meetings that stimulate frank discussions of feelings and emotions.  Others have required supervisors to have one-on-one meetings with employees and listen to their feelings.  In my experience the most difficult activity is listening and not getting defensive.  In many situations, managers need to be trained in basic listening, empathy, and reflection skills.  This training has a dual effect:  it helps the boss to deal with his issues and equips her to help her employees. 

 Sponsoring special programs that help leaders develop the skills and perspectives to lead downsized organizations is a unique opportunity for both HR professionals and top managers.  Managers of all levels are employees too, and because of their key role in helping the organization recover, special attention needs to be paid to their own recovery from survivor sickness.

Here are four very powerful guidelines for coaching organizational leaders in troubled times.  I’ve written about them in other contexts, but I think it is appropriate that I summarize them here:

 Help is defined by the helpee not the helper.  I learned this deceptively simple phrase from the late Pat Williams, founder of the Pepperdine MSOD program and, over the years, have increasingly come to appreciate it’s relevance to a coaching relationship.  When a client is caught up in a crisis of purpose, competence, and self-esteem; facts, figures, models, 360 degree feedback reports, and flow charts don’t help – in fact they get in the way.  The currency of the realm is feelings and emotions, not facts and figures.  Logical analysis and rational planning may help the coach feel competent, but they will only make the coachee feel worse.  Anyone who has had an argument with a significant other and attempted to defuse their emotional issues by logical analysis to prove that they “shouldn’t feel that way” will understand that you don’t solve a “heart” problem (emotions and feelings) by a “head” (data and logic) process.  In a coaching relationship, the more a client’s “heart” issues are responded to by the coach’s “head” solutions, the wider the empathy gap. What is necessary before helping the client move forward are the basic skills of empathetic listening, reflecting feelings and emotions, and the ability to form an authentic, non-judgmental, helping relationship.  I deal primarily with top managers, and I’m, including their family, frequently the only one they feel can open up to.  In these unsettling times, we can often be of more service to our clients by simply giving them empathy rather than our “scientific” tools.

Don’t be compulsive about boundaries.   I once worked with a bright but inexperienced coach who lost a valuable client by, when in a very teachable moment, disengaging and indicating the client needed to talk to a licensed clinical psychologist.  Business coaches should not practice therapy, most are not licensed or trained, and that is not our business purpose.  If we are doing our job correctly, we are, however, engaged in a client centered helping relationship and that is, in itself, therapeutic.  We don’t have to be licensed clinicians to be good listeners, reflect feelings and emotions, and help our clients articulate debilitating feelings.  It is essential to know and adhere to our limits but it is also important that we don’t let artificial boundaries limit our abilities to help our clients.  Another Pat Williams saying is “to meet your clients where they are, not where you want them to be.”  In a time of business discontinuity we need to have the skills to meet them in the messy and unpredictable world of uncertainty and personal doubt.

Don’t be a solution in search of a problem.  Most business coaches have a favorite technique or approach.  Whether it be a diagnostic tool, an analytical process, or a structured behavioral rehearsal process, we all have preferred mental models that guide us.  Unfortunately, I have found that, despite diagnostic evidence to the contrary, too many coaches seem locked into a single technique.  I recently followed a coach into a textile manufacturing company.  My client was the vice president of manufacturing and was facing a massive downsizing triggered by a strategic decision to move operations to China.  What he needed was help in dealing with the layoff survivors and teaching his managers to facilitate venting sessions and formulate a positive vision for the remaining work force.  What his original displaced coach kept pushing was a 360 degree feedback process.  No doubt 360 degree feedback would, at some point, be useful for this vice president, but given the current environment, it would at best be a distraction.  In order to be relevant to our clients, we need the discipline to engage in a diagnostic process and the skills to have a contingent repertoire of coaching interventions.

Make the client an individual, not an organization.  Almost always helping the individual client helps the organization in the long term.  However, in the short term, as when the best solution for the client is to help them leave the organization, the connection is not so clear.  I have very few iron clad rules but one that has been of great help is to always contract with the person.  I don’t turn down assignments if my fee comes out of a “corporate” account but I strongly prefer it come from the budget of the individual client and, if not, I make my costs very visible.  In a time of restructuring, mergers, downsizing, and financial crisis, most executive clients are examining their life and career goals.  It is not possible to engage in an authentic helping relationship if the coach has divided loyalties between the organization and the individual client.