Why Should You Hire An External Coach For Your Employees?
Written by: Casimiro da Silva Santos, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I will try to answer this pertinent question. The main reason is that in-house coaches, managers, team leaders, and supervisors do not coach. They mentor. I know this is controversial. If you keep reading this article, you will understand where I am coming from.
There is not a single academic paper or research about leadership that does not mention coaching as one of the top three skills of a leader is coaching. However, is coaching in the corporate world the same as defined by the International Coaching Federation (ICF)? This article presents opinions on answering this question when corporate coaching is done in-house by a manager, supervisor, or other company executives and a professional coach certified by the ICF. My response, based on more than 20 years of experience in the corporate world, leading and managing teams to excel, is a big no.
Why Do Organizations Use Coaching?
As a certified coach by the ICF, I subscribe to the definition that coaching is "a partnership with clients through a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential."
Analysing this definition, I say that coaching at the corporate level is all about:
Improving your relationship with your manager or peers.
Improving your communication skills.
Improving your performance.
Broadening your career path.
Improving your work-balance life.
Improving self-confidence.
Improved productivity, avoiding procrastination.
Improving your executive presence, among others.
Based on this non-exhaustive list, you can immediately see how a conflict of interest can arise. Since an executive, a manager, or any other senior employee acting as an in-house coach can be coaching an individual that one day can report to them, they can be a peer of the employee's manager. It is in this situation that coaching can go wrong.
When Can Coaching Go Wrong?
Coaching can go wrong when an ethical conflict is generated. This conflict will create a lack of confidentiality and an unsafe environment where psychological safety does not exist. For those of us who are professional coaches by the ICF, we can see that this is in direct opposition to the first ICF's competency. The first competency is about ensuring privacy and a safe, confidential environment, as themes, problems or subjects touched or told about and discussed during the sessions can be addressed and discussed as part of talent development, employee performance and development review meetings. After all, the in-house coach is loyal to the company, not the coachee. The purpose of coaching is to coach the person, not the issues they bring to the table and the sessions.
In the corporate world, a "coach" generally shares experiences and behaviours and provides wisdom and guidance based on their own experience. This description is a broader definition of mentoring, not coaching. Mentoring may include advising, counselling and coaching. Coaching does not include advising or counselling so the coachee can emulate and see how they improve the expected behaviour. Remember that coaching is a co-creation process, a partnership between the coach and the coachee where the coach is responsible for the process.
In contrast, the coachee is responsible and accountable for implementing the actions. Coaching's success is based on the coachee's objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs), not the organisation's manager. For the ultimate success, the organisation, the supervisor and the coachee's KPIs should be aligned. Most of the time, they are not.
In-house "Coaches" Mentor. They Don't Coach.
Without some relevant and contextual details, it is not difficult to judge the poor efficacy of using internal or in-house coaching in the corporate world. Simply it will not work due to fundamental ethical issues, e.g., conflict of interests, lack of confidentiality and lack of psychological safety, which are the basis of coaching. So corporations and leadership gurus should stop saying that one of the leadership skills is coaching. Therefore, to ensure the coachee's success and the coaching process, corporations and managers should always hire an external coach from a recognized and reputable firm accredited by the ICF and stick to what they do best – mentoring.
Casimiro da Silva Santos, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Casimiro da Silva Santos, better known as Cas, uses pronouns he/his. He is a dad, a business and climate action leader, a coach, and a speaker. His mission is to create a perspective of abundance, alleviating scarcity so that we can live a brighter future. After a transformational coaching experience with Simon Sinek Inc., Cas decided to create Bring the Best®, a coaching and consulting firm for personal development and business growth. Through individual, career, and executive coaching, Bring the Best transforms lives so that each person can live the life they want and dream about. His coaching style is authentic and empathetic, with a special focus on the LGBTQIA+ community.
