September 2014
Issue Map
Global-HRD-Newsletter-Middle-East

TD Article: Global Support

Friday, September 26, 2014

The rise in global leaders creates a need for skilled global coaches to assist them.

Holt
Coaching has evolved during the past 20 years. The standard one-to-one coaching assignment is still a dominant mode of skills development. However, far fewer of these are remedial anymore.

Although coaching started with the goal of "fixing" bad behavior and saving careers, most assignments now are proactive and developmental. The goal is to help a leader learn skills needed to operate at the next level.

The rise of coaching

Executive coaching began in the 1960s as a way to help leaders become more effective in light of the limitations of group training. It was typically delivered by former business leaders and human resources professionals, given their credibility and understanding of the business context that executives face.

During the 1980s, psychologists entered the field and developed an approach to coaching behavior change based on research. As its popularity grew, others flocked to coaching from various walks of life.

Most coach training today occurs outside university settings with varying levels of oversight and standards. Coaches have worked to professionalize the field through associations such as the European Coaching and Mentoring Council and the International Coach Federation. In 2005, ASTD began including coaching as an area of expertise for its Certified Professional in Learning and Performance credential.

As companies expanded their operations and markets into other countries, global coaching emerged to help leaders manage global organizations. However, there is no consensus about what is required to be a global coach.

Some believe it takes a global mindset and good cross-cultural communication skills to be called a global coach. Others feel it is essential to have lived and worked outside one's home country. Many people call themselves global coaches even if they only do virtual or phone coaching with global leaders, or simply coach local leaders who work for multinational organizations.

Finally, some argue that there is no such thing as global coaching—that good coaching, as a process, transcends cultural boundaries. For simplicity, we define global coaches as people who develop global leaders, whatever the context.

Challenges of global leadership

Global coaches have talented and demanding clients. The leaders they support face daunting challenges on many fronts. On the business front, they are dealing with hyper-complexity:

  • setting up new business operations in emerging markets
  • scaling businesses across multiple countries and currencies
  • anticipating and dealing with conflicting customer preferences
  • negotiating deals where trust and communication may be an issue
  • operating global supply chains fraught with various perils.

When these activities take place in other countries, the motives and behavior of key stakeholders can be murky. And it can be more difficult to create alignment. Training programs cannot prepare leaders adequately for the complexity and ambiguity they face.
Global leaders also are dealing with hyper-uncertainty:

  • remaining centered in the midst of geopolitical change
  • identifying where home is, and what is their community
  • navigating career issues, often with a sense of isolation from headquarters
  • coping with family issues, which require energy, presence, and attention.

These challenges stretch global leaders physically and emotionally, making it difficult for them to stay focused and effective. Meanwhile, global leaders also face a variety of personal leadership challenges:

  • heavy workloads and 24/7 schedules spanning multiple time zones
  • managing virtual teams where people rarely, if ever, meet in person
  • communicating effectively with people working in a second language
  • clarifying their own values while working across different cultural value systems
  • staying true to their personal identity and vision.

The global coaches and HR and learning and development professionals who support these business leaders face a similar set of demands and need a practical set of tools to manage them.

Advertisement

Tools for focusing global leaders and coaches

Global coaches work from a variety of perspectives and employ a range of models. There is no standard way to create an identity. However, there are many threads that bind us.

Being a global coach has to do with more than our activity (working with global companies and global executives). Being a global coach is about our mindset (having a global perspective), competence (leveraging our understanding of global organizational and leadership issues), and identity (thinking of ourselves as global citizens).

In a recent collaboration with some colleagues around the world on a book called The Global Coach, our goal was to share a variety of approaches that could help global coaches and HR/L&D professionals support global leaders. For example, Kathleen Curran of Singapore introduces the concept of "global resonance" as a dynamic process of creating deep, resonant connections between individuals so they can come together with a conscious intention to develop shared understanding and full engagement. And Teresa Woodland of Beijing presents several case studies to illustrate how making the changes required to work well across cultures can facilitate shifts in development levels.

Mindfulness is one strategy that can benefit global coaches (see "Mindshifting" sidebar below). Josh Ehrlich suggests remaining grounded and centered as we leave home as a way to find a secure base within ourselves and within a community of practitioners; and to stay present as our clients race faster and faster, and drag us into mindlessness (if we are not careful). We all can stay connected by:

  • identifying our foundation (understanding our values and purpose)
  • clarifying our roles (to what extent we are doers or leaders)
  • paying attention mindfully (being present to body, mind, and emotions)
  • learning to reflect (looking back, forward, inward, and outward).

Uday Khedkar of Mumbai likens human beings to icebergs, having patterned behavior that limits their possibilities. His suggestion is a transformative inquiry process for working on mindsets, bodysets, and life scripts to unleash the power of one's vast untapped potential.
Therese Tong, from Singapore, says a "mind-heart-body" model can help see the client holistically. This model reminds us that these seemingly disparate aspects of ourselves are interconnected and affect each other.

Leaders on the move go through frequent, complex, and risky role changes. To address this, Carol Braddick in London suggests that global coaches read the context and anticipate unique issues that may arise.

When conflicts of interest arise when facilitating career discussions, Nigel Cumberland of Dubai encourages coaches to help leaders establish career coaching goals and explore career options within their own organization before helping them look outside. And to help leaders get a fast start in their new global roles, coaches can hold an assimilation session with stakeholders and develop a 90-day plan, as Katherine Holt advises.

Marta Williams of Madrid reminds us that many leaders outside the United States have never had access to leadership training. Even high-potential leaders may lack basic skills that are taken for granted in the United States. One solution is to use what Williams calls CASCADE coaching. During the process, leaders learn and apply basic leadership skills, and then teach those skills as part of coaching their direct reports.

Several assessment tools have been developed to help leaders understand their styles and behavior compared with leaders from other cultures. Many of these include a cultural dimension as well, such as the measurement of cultural intelligence, Global Competencies Inventory, Global Mindset Inventory, and the Globesmart Leadership Assessment.

The new global coach

Many companies are incorporating coaching into broader leadership development programs. While some executives may only get a few hours with a coach to debrief assessments, others may work with their coach for an entire year and may participate in peer coaching groups too. Coaching is now used as a tool for broader leadership and cultural development, as well as to help drive organizational competitiveness.

How coaches are working also is changing. Coaches are becoming more connected and collaborating more than ever before. The model of the solo practitioner is going away. Coaches are joining global networks to learn from each other and support multinational clients.

Advertisement

We are seeing a new level of professionalism. Although psychologists have long understood the need for supervision, coaches are just now embracing this practice. Part of the push is coming from corporations that require supervision, but we believe supervision can help coaching become a true profession that serves society with world-class standards. Coach supervision can appeal to our desire for lifelong learning and impact as well.

Global coaching faces significant threats, as does coaching in general. As more coaches have entered the field, coaching has become commoditized.

New telecommunications have decreased the need and opportunity to conduct face-to-face coaching. Technology has begun to offer just-in-time development solutions that challenge the need for coaches, including expert systems, e-learning programs, and more apps.

While some coaches predict the end of an era, we believe isolated senior executives will continue to need a safe place to go with their concerns, and the demands of global leadership will continue to make leaders turn to coaches for help. Those brave leaders will work to transform themselves in the context of a human process that no app can replace.

Becoming a Global Coach

Our identities as global coaches developed along parallel lines. Here are our stories:

My identity as a global coach developed during the past 20 years of doing this work. One driver came from my colleagues, the other from my clients. I found myself working with leaders from other parts of the world, who then took jobs in still other parts of the world. To keep up, I had to expand my awareness, flexibility, and skill set. I also started meeting coaches from elsewhere in the world, going to global conferences, and working toward coaching as a unified global profession. Supervising coaches from other countries added to my sense of being part of something larger; writing articles and receiving feedback from across the globe continued the trend. —Joshua Ehrlich

My first exposure to global coaching was during the 1980s when I began conducting 360 feedback and coaching in multinational corporations. I was inspired by the challenges facing my clients, such as the Puerto Rican leader who wanted to transform his organization, as well as its London headquarters. I had to lift my game to keep up with the thinking and pace of their businesses. My love for global coaching blossomed when I moved to Japan. Like many expatriates, I was suddenly working across time zones and country, cultural, and language barriers with lots of personal enthusiasm, but little formal preparation. I found cultural informants in each country who helped me learn how to work across cultures. Those lessons helped me work with other clients and train coaches throughout Asia-Pacific. After repatriating back to the United States, I established a global network and now serve as a master coach for more than 100 coaches in 40 countries. —Katherine Holt

Mindshifting

Learning to be open, present, and engaged—in other words, mindful—has a tremendous number of benefits, from clarity and creativity to stronger relationships and longevity. Mindfulness is a powerful coaching tool and framework for global coaches. One way we can apply mindfulness is to shift how we pay attention as we transition from being doers to leaders. We can call this shift in where we focus, what we value, and how we measure success “mindshifting.”

To expand our perspective globally, we need to cultivate our ability to stay open to differences. Mindfulness includes accepting whatever we find when we pay attention—both in ourselves and in others. It is cultivated formally through meditation, and informally by simply intending to stay awake and open to difference and subtlety whenever we can. Cultivating mindfulness helps us notice our judgments, reactions, and feelings about others without reacting.

The impact of mindfulness on inclusion can be summed up simply:

  • If I can accept myself, I can be open to you.
  • If I can be open to you, I can be curious.
  • If I can be curious, I can avoid judging.

Becoming more global in our perspective also means expanding our attention outward in several ways:

  • Seek out different perspectives through media, journals, and conferences, and challenge our premature judgments when we encounter something we dislike.
  • Interact with people from other cultures and backgrounds while being curious about their worldviews.
  • Clarify our own values and pay attention to when we impose these values on others.
About the Author

Joshua Ehrlich is chairman of the Global Leadership Council, an international network of experts in leadership and organizational transformation whose vision is to create mindful leaders, teams, and organizations.

He is a senior advisor and coach who helps leaders drive innovation and change. He is a leading authority on succeeding in demanding environments and an expert on mindful leadership. Based on his research, he helps individuals, teams and organizations develop their engagement, resilience and strategic thinking. Josh has worked with hundreds of executives and dozens of teams in multinational companies, including more than 50 of the Fortune 100 across multiple industries.

Josh is the author of Mindshifting: Focus for Performance.

About the Author

Katherine Holt specializes in transformational coaching, working with executives to achieve breakthrough possibilities for themselves and their businesses. She designs programs to develop leaders who will grow healthy and sustainable organizations as well as high performing ones. She has done coaching and training throughout Asia-Pacific since 1993. Her firm Peakinsight LLC serves clients worldwide through a network of executive coaches in 35 countries.

Be the first to comment
Sign In to Post a Comment
Sorry! Something went wrong on our end. Please try again later.