The heart of coaching: Developing a coaching model for the manager

Jonathan Passmore

The coaching sector has mushroomed in the last five years. In 1999 working as a chief executive I never thought about whether I needed an executive coach. Now, sitting on the opposite side of the table senior managers have come to believe this is an indispensable part of their personal development.

Coaching’s popularity has spread to managers, who are keen to add the approach to their range of skills. The work of writers such as Goleman (2002) has highlighted the benefits of coaching as one of a variety of styles that successful managers use. He suggested that when combined with developing a clear vision, sharing this vision with others, and involving others to build plans, managers can build long-term strength in organisations.

Managers recognise this but have been struggling to get coaching to work for them. For most organisations managers operate their coaching practice without a model, and this tends to feel more like ‘tell’ then ‘ask’, even when the manager calls it coaching. For organisations which do offer a developmental style the GROW model is ubiquitous. Once learned, managers have little space to further develop what they do, or to think more widely about the questions they ask.

To support this developmental need we have developed a manager’s coaching model which is routed in the behaviouralist traditions of GROW, but helps managers to think through what they should be doing. We don’t see this as a replacement of GROW, which we think is a simple but robust goalfocused model well suited to executive coaching (Passmore 2003). Instead we see this model as a manager’s guide to using GROW. We have called this the ‘Heart of Coaching Model’.

Full article: Volume 1, Issue 2 pages 6 - 9