The Executive as Coach
Waldroop, J. & Butler, T. (1996). Harvard Business Review.
It has been found that coaching - helping change the behaviors that threaten to derail valued managers - is
often the best way to help that manager succeed. Good coaching is simply good management. It
requires many of the same skills, such as keen powers of observation, sensible judgment, and
an ability to take appropriate actions. Similarly, the goal of coaching is the goal of good
management: to make the most of an organization's valuable resources. The key to coaching is
to be imaginative and to look for a variety of solutions. Behavioral change requires
understanding one's effect on other people - a process that can be painful. Effective
coaches know the questions to ask in evaluating a situation. An effective coach also draws
on a wide variety of coaching techniques to help a manager change problem behaviors.
Coaching must reflect the complexity and difficulty of genuine efforts to change behavior.