LEADING THOUGHTS

Creating or performing art can be a powerful way to develop managerial and leadership awareness and skills. It can also be a flavour-of-the-month technique that is used as a novelty with little understanding of how it may benefit individuals.

Writing in the Academy of Management Learning & Education, Steven S. Taylor (Worcester Polytechnic) and Donna Ladkin (Cranfield U) offer a model of four unique processes underpinning arts-based management development methods.

Skills transfer: development of artistic skills that can be applied in organizational settings (medical residents being taught theatre skills to increase their clinical empathy). “Arts-based methods allow managers to feel the experience of those skills rather than think about them, such as when theatrical improvisation exercises are used to get managers to feel what it is like to listen deeply and be listened to deeply.”

Projective technique: the output of artistic endeavors allows participants to reveal inner thoughts and feelings that may not be accessible through conventional means (managers building 3-D representations of their org strategy using LEGO bricks). “Two managers can have a discussion in which they differ about what an image that has been created means in a way that doesn’t make them feel defensive but rather fosters learning about each others’ perspective.”

Illustration of essence: participants can apprehend the “essence” of a concept, situation, or tacit knowledge in greater depth than conventional methods (viewing the film Twelve O’Clock High to illustrate key leadership lessons). “Reading and seeing Henry V performed and engaging in extended discussion of leadership as Shakespeare has portrayed it can help a manager have a much more complex and nuanced understanding of leadership in a way that is based in a felt, emotional, personal connection rather than through an abstract, intellectual theorization.”

Making: creating art can foster a deeper experience of personal presence and connection (MBA students taking art classes to enhance their creativity). “It is a form of personal development that is not tied directly to specific organizational outcomes, but rather is undertaken with more generic long-term goals in mind. Thus we can imagine arts-based programs being included as part of wellness initiatives aimed at the long-term health and development of employees.”

The authors caution that not all arts-based techniques are the same. Managers engaging with Shakespearean plays experience something different from those making masks that represent their leadership styles. Using their model, trainers can select the right art form for their learning objective.

Understanding Arts-Based Methods in Managerial Development, by Steven S. Taylor and Donna Ladkin; Academy of Management Learning & Education (2009, Vol. 8, No. 1, 55–69)

Email me for a copy of this paper: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

photo credit: paurian

Executive coaching has become a hugely popular management development technique. The International Coaching Federation alone boasts 17,000 professional coaches from more than 95 countries. But research on what makes coaching a successful development process has not kept pace. Not even close.

Louis Baron and Lucie Morin (U of Quebec at Montreal) set out to fill that vacuum. Choosing to focus on the working relationship between coach and “coachee”, the researchers collected survey data from two samples: 73 managers in a large North American manufacturing company who received executive coaching for a period of eight months, and 24 coaches. The coaches were company executives participating in a coaching certification program.

Results indicate that the quality of the coach–coachee relationship is a prerequisite for coaching effectiveness and an important factor in the development of the client’s “self-efficacy.” (Self-efficacy is the belief that one is capable of performing in a certain manner to attain certain goals.) Particularly significant was the coaches’ ability to facilitate learning: establishing a development plan, tracking learning progress, using a structured approach, making connections, and identifying obstacles.

On the client or coachee side, the more a manager is motivated to apply newly developed skills in her work and the higher is her perception of supervisory support, the better the coaching relationship.

“Our results . . . underline the importance, when implementing internal executive coaching programs, of working with future coaches on ways to favor the development of a good working relationship,” the authors write. “Certification programs should sensitize coaches on the working relationship, by making them conscious of how they influence its development and the obstacles they may encounter.”

The Coach–Coachee Relationship in Executive Coaching: A Field Study, by Louis Baron and Lucie Morin; Human Resource Development Quarterly (vol. 20, no. 1, Spring 2009)

Email me for a copy of this paper: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

photo credit: NeeDeeAhh!