Executive Coaching Australia

A brief history, and future trends

Executive Coaching Australia has been evolving as it has around the world. When I started coaching full time in 1997 I could only source 5 or so people who called themselves coaches in Australia, and only a few of these people worked in the corporate executive world.

1997 was the beginning of the internet as a tool of wide usage, as well as the de-regulation of the telephone system, making international calls much more affordable. I include these two items as reference points for the changes that were afoot in the corporate and communications world. We were moving rapidly into a highly connected, global community, allowing for the introduction of virtual classrooms, and viral information flows. Coaching was to grow virally along with the technology of connectivity.

Training schools for coaching did not exist in Australia at the time, indeed, coaching that didn’t live on the sports field was a mystery to most people.

It wasn’t until the early 2000’s that executive coaching Australia started to take root.

From 1998 to 2003, as a Board member of the International Coach Federation, which had only been in existence for several years, I went to the USA twice a year, and developed relationships with the founders of the profession of coaching. Cheryl Richardson, Laura Berman Fortgang, DJ Mitsch, John Seiffer, Madeline Homan, Jay Perry, Marcia Reynolds, Sandy Vilus, Laura Whitworth, Philip Cohen, Lorraine White...and many more. I had the very good fortune to be a witness to the earliest days of coaching globally, and have watched as it has evolved to its present iteration.

Being able to inhabit both the USA and Australian worlds of coaching gave me a unique perspective of the emergence of coaching, and especially executive coaching Australia and how it related to, lagged behind, and lead the USA in different domains.

I started my career in executive coaching Australia in 2000 with one of the big four banks. Given that I was one of the most experienced coaches, which I say tongue in cheek, as my experience was all of three years, entry into the Executive Suite as a coach was pretty easy at this time, as long as the company was receptive to this new “tool”. I am thrilled that my relationships with my very early clients continues strongly today.

I am quite unique in the executive coaching arena as my relationships with many of my individual executive clients have been ongoing for more than 7 years. For most organisations today, particularly amongst the HR and Training and Development divisions, this is seen as problematic. However, as long as some critical criteria are in place, this kind of long term coaching relationship, while quite unique, is of very high value.

The critical criteria I hold as sacrosanct to my work with long term clients includes;

*the relationship is a strong coach/client relationship, with established boundaries, clear agreements

*there is zero dependency, or co-dependency. At all times the coach holds their client to their own actions, answers and solutions

*the coach is actively evolving in their own growth, and brings constant new perspectives to the dialogue. If the coach stops growing, the relationship quickly becomes redundant

*very high trust, respect and integrity is foundational and a given

*both the client and the organisation see a significant return on investment

The benefits of this long term coaching engagement that can never be achieved in short term initiatives include;

*the coach gets to know the client so well, that the client cannot get away with any of their petty default behaviour, even on the smallest level

*the coach holds the client to their highest possible behaviour, actions and integrity at all times

*a form of objective partnership occurs that is hard to duplicate in the non coach world

*the client knows they have a trusted, objective sounding board, who knows them so well they can intuit truth, or absence of truth, with far greater clarity and rigor than most people

*the coach can be a rich resource for the client, bringing new thinking, global trends, relationships, opportunities to the relationship that are very pertinent and relevant to the client

If we look at the model of success in any domain, most very successful people have one or two people on their team who are long term partners in their success. Obviously I am a big fan of this type of integral executive coaching, and indeed have worked with my own coach for 14 years now. At times I also work with other coaches, to bring in both diversity and specialty, however, every month I speak with my chief coach. I know when I am in this conversation I am held to a level of rigor, with compassion, that I will not find in any other relationship. For me this value is priceless.

Future Trends for Executive Coaching Australia

Executive Coaching Australia today is a very different scene. Entry is much more difficult, and as is the trend world wide, often times involves being on a panel of coaches, with quite a rigorous screening processes. Nothing wrong with this. Once on the panel, there are various protocols and structures that one must adopt. Given that the premise behind coaching from my perspective is that the client sets the agenda, this is part of any coaching contract and therefore is completely agreeable. However, in many cases now there are at least two clients. The hiring organisation, and the actual person being coached. Often we also have to answer to the manager of the person being coached. The ethical question that is asked is who is the actual “client”. The paying/hiring organisation, or the coachee? From my point of view it is both, and essential that the coach clearly outlines how they manage the two relationships with impeccable integrity.

Given that coaching is still a relatively young profession, I see the future of executive coaching Australia, and indeed executive coaching world wide, as continuing in its early infant years, where strong boundaries need to be established. Qualified coaches, tight protocols, etc. This trend will continue for some years, allowing a level of prescriptiveness to coaching. This is a necessary step to bring experience, rigor, and discipline into the profession.

However, where the world is moving in executive coaching is to work with the whole person, integrating not just performance, development, and results, but also looking at the philosophical principles, core spiritual beliefs, cultural and societal engagement, worldview, ethics, health, etc into the dialogue.

Why? Because the world we are moving into is far more complex than ever before, and requires the kind of executive leadership that far exceeds traditional business schools and practice. We need to look outside business as usual, and start to develop business as unusual. True leadership development is about development of the whole person, and an ability to be able to see the world and all of its parts with empathy, clarity, and compassion using tools and perspectives that we have not used before. It requires innovation of mind, body and spirit, in constant respect of the success of all of humanity and the environment. This is the challenge that creates opportunity for executive coaching Australia

As my life time mentor, R.Buckminster Fuller quoted.

“Initiative can neither be created nor delegated. It can only spring from the self-determining individual who declares that the wisdom of others is not always better than his own.”

Or as Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it.”

Executive Coaching Australia, if we dare, has the ability and opportunity to lead the way with this type of coaching leadership development. Our Aussie culture is one of “give it a go”, and non conformity. We are a nation that thrives on Positive Deviance. While performance coaching is great, a much more comprehensive level of executive coaching is required to support the development of leaders able to lead within the ever increasing complexity. Of course this also requires as a given, that the coach themselves is highly evolved and skilled, able to work within an integral framework with comfort and ease. It is my hope that executive coaching Australia Dares...

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