The Art and Practice of Leadership Coaching edited by Howard Morgan, Phil Harkins, and Marshall Goldsmith. (2005) John Wiley & Sons, Inc., $19.77 Hardcover

ReaderStrength Rating:
Focus 4
Build 2
Adapt 4
Overall Rating as a leadership resource 3.5
(Please see "How Do We Evaluate Resources?" in right column)


One of the most valuable tools in leadership development is coaching. A relatively new field, coaching is catching on as a development strategy used in many organizations. In The Art and Practice of Leadership Coaching, editors Howard Morgan, Phil Harkins and Marshall Goldsmith strive to provide some structure to this new and rapidly expanding field.

The book is written for three constituents: the coach, the coachee, and the client organization. Although not expressly stated, it is also great for leaders in two ways: for optimizing their own leadership performance via coaching, and for creating a high-performance organization through developing a coaching culture. The editors’ methodology was to compile short essays from coaches in a variety of specialties, and to bring together data from interviews, profiles, and surveys to provide an overall view of best practices in the field.

The book is divided into four sections:

Working with Coaches-includes the editors’ perspective on how to select the right coach as well as best practices in partnering with a coach for maximum impact.

50 Top Executive Coaches-contains short essays by top coaches in five coaching categories: Coaching Leaders/Behavioral Coaching, Career/Life Coaching, Coaching for Leadership Development, Coaching for Organizational Change, and Strategy Coaching.

Internal Coaching-discusses internal coaching issues and practices, and gives a useful checklist for these coaches.

The Coaching Almanac-provides a discussion on assessing the return on investment (ROI) of coaching plus a survey of current trends in the U.S. coaching market.

The book has many strengths. There is something in this book for all categories of audience! For example, coaches will gain inside information and tips from some of the best coaches in the field. In many cases, I knew and agreed with practices presented. In other cases, the ideas were new to me and greatly expanded my view. As a leader, it validated my perspective that coaching is an invaluable tool for anyone who develops people and organizations, while giving me new tips on ways coaching can be used by leaders.

The division into coaching categories is very telling. While reading, I realized that there were noticeable characteristics of “voice” that flowed within each category. Executive coaches spoke of optimizing performance in high achievement personalities, while career/life coaches often spoke in holistic, wellness terms of developing the whole person. Leadership development coaches discussed both coaching for leadership effectiveness and strategies for creating leaders as coaches and mentors to develop a coaching culture in the organization. Strategy coaches focused on business concerns, while organizational change coaches discussed transitions and being proactive in the midst of change. One thing became eminently clear: coaching is a big field, and coaches will thrive by choosing to gain a deep understanding of, and expertise in, a particular specialty.

Leaders of client organizations will find that this book clarifies an approach for choosing when to use coaching and how to select the right coach for their needs. They will also gain a language for interviewing coaches, and tips for recognizing when a particular coach is and is not qualified to do the work. In addition, the section on ROI begins to map out a way to measure results in terms of the bottom line. This is a very new endeavor, and the book does a good job of informing us of the current state of this art while indicating directions for future growth.

Coachees will learn of the many options open to them as they explore their needs and consider the best way to satisfy them. They will also learn a bit about the practicalities of coaching, so they know their options as they create a contract with a particular coach.

There’s only one area I feel could be improved upon, and that is there is no overview of best practices in each coaching specialty. The book met its goal of presenting an overview of practices through the many essays, and there were some checklists for some arenas (such as internal coaching and creating leaders as coaches); however, it was not consistent for each specialty. I would find value in a summary for each chapter, along with a distillation of best practices used by most of the coaches in that specialty.

Recommendation

In general, I recommend this book as a wonderful overview of the coaching field at this time. Coachees and leaders of client organizations will find much to increase their knowledge so they can be informed consumers and obtain the results they desire. As a coach, I found it invaluable in expanding my knowledge of the field and deepening my understanding of the issues we face. The section on current and future trends was particularly informative and invaluable for coaches to use in choosing where and how to position their work. I’m particularly grateful for the generosity of the contributors in sharing their coaching models, their philosophies, the wisdom they’ve gained from many years of experience, and their deep caring for the development of their clients.
 

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How Do We Evaluate Resources?

All of the books we review are evaluated on how they support a leader’s progress in applying our working definition of leadership.

We teach leaders to: Focus, Build, and Adapt:

Focus: A leader is able to see a new future

Build: A leader can build from his or her strengths as a foundation, adding on new skills, knowledge, and attitudes to create the new future.

Adapt: A leader is skilled at using feedback from their own thinking, other people’s reactions, and results/information from their environments to self-correct and keep moving toward the new future they envisioned.

Here is our rating system:

Outstanding 4

Good 3

Satisfactory 2

Unsatisfactory 1

Focus- How well does this book inspire a vision of a new future?

Build- How well does this book teach new knowledge and skills?

Adapt-How well does this book assist readers in examining and optimizing their own behaviors?

Overall Rating as a Leadership Resource: We average the ratings in the above three categories.