By Amber Hanna, August 2010

Have you ever been in a group situation where someone has taken control of the group by describing their clear vision for the group’s goals, a real passion for the work to be done and an ability to make the rest of the group feel energized? This style of leadership is known as ‘Transformational Leadership’ a relatively rare but highly sought after leadership style.

Research has shown leaders to be the most prominent aspect of a workplace environment that can shape team members’ perceptions of workplace information. Leaders can use this extraordinary impact to improve team members’ work related attitudes and feelings.

In large companies in particular, a leader’s influence on workflow and task assignment can be rather limited, never the less, leaders in such companies can engage in ‘management of meaning’ or organisational sense making to provide team members with a deeper understanding of how important and meaningful their tasks are. This in turn contributes to greater organisational commitment. A second useful approach can be to give lower and middle hierarchy leaders, in particular, greater autonomy and degrees of freedom. These enriched leadership positions should enable leaders to show many behaviours of the transformational leadership pattern.

Leaders in any organisation or hierarchy should facilitate a positive organisational climate by providing opportunities for contact, support and other social activities, on and off the job. The role of individual team members in promoting consensus and positive organisational climate should also be emphasized by their own fair and respectful behavior towards their co workers they can promote consensus and a positive climate.

The concept of transformational leadership was initially introduced by leadership expert and presidential biographer James MacGregor Burns. According to Burns, transformational leadership can be seen when “leaders and followers make each other advance to a higher level of moral and motivation.” Through the strength of their vision and personality, transformational leaders are able to inspire followers to change expectations, perceptions and motivations to work towards common goals. Bass (1985, 1999) later expanded this theory into the model of transformational leadership we use today. This research outlined how a transformational leader achieves results by seeking to move his/her team beyond immediate self interest through four main processes. These are the processes of idealized influence (or charisma), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration.

Research indicates that all four components of transformational leadership are positively related to leadership effectiveness, and have positive associations with team member motivations and self rated performance.

Factor 1- Idealized Influence/ Charisma (II)

This factor of transformational leadership describes leaders who act as strong role models for their team members; by seeing their leader as a role model team members begin to identify with the leader and wish to emulate them. This aspect of transformational leadership is enacted when leaders envision a desirable future, articulate how this can be reached and set an example to be followed. The transformational leader uses idealized influence to provide team members with a vision and sense of mission.

Factor 2- Inspirational Motivation (IM)

This factor describes leaders who communicate high expectations to team members, inspiring them through motivation to become committed to and part of a shared vision in the organisation. By helping their team to experience the same passion they feel the transformational leader motivates the team to fulfill their group’s goals. In practice this involves leaders using symbols and emotional appeals to focus the group members’ efforts to achieve more than they would in their own self-interest. This enhances team spirit.

Factor 3- Intellectual stimulation (IS)

This factor refers to leadership that stimulates team members to be creative and innovative and challenge their own beliefs and values as well as those of the organisation or leader.

This factor of transformational leadership supports team members as they engage in new approaches and develop innovative ways of dealing with organisational demands or problems. This factor is thought to encourage team members to think on their own and engage in careful problem solving methods by themselves. Typically transformational leaders enact intellectual stimulation by challenging the status quo, encouraging creativity among their team and always seeking out new ways of doing things and new learning opportunities.

Factor 4- Individualized Consideration (IC)

This factor refers to the transformational leader who provides a supportive climate in which they listen to the individual needs of each team member. By acting as coaches and trusted advisers transformational leaders try to assist their team members to fully realize their own potential as a valuable and contributive team member.

Another important behaviour indicating a transformational style is how the leader uses delegation to assist team members through personal challenges. This part of individualized consideration also highlights the importance of allowing team members the space to develop their own problem solving skills but also providing a directive approach for those who may need it. In order to fully enact this aspect of transformational leadership it is essential the leader keep all lines of communication open. This fosters a culture of everyone in the team contributing ideas and enables the leader to give direct recognition to each team members’ contribution.

It is important to distinguish that directive and supportive leadership behaviours are both needed. Research has distinguished supportive leadership as including behaviours relating to emotional support such as provision of sympathy, evidence of liking, caring and listening. Developmental leadership on the other hand is seen here as being more transformative as it includes behaviours such as career counseling, observation of staff, recording progress and encouraging technical development of skills. Developmental leadership has been found to have a stronger relationship with the outcome variables of job satisfaction; role based self efficacy, career certainty and affective commitment to the organisation.

If you want to gauge your own approach in relation to transformational leadership take a look at the statements below. These statements are taken from a recent measure of transformational leadership devised by Ronald Riggio.

1. I would never require a follower to do something that I wouldn’t do myself. (II)

2. My followers would say that they know what I stand for. (II)

3. Inspiring others has always come easy to me. (IM)

4. My followers have told me that my enthusiasm and positive energy are infectious. (IM)

5. My followers would say that I am very attentive to their needs and concerns. (IC)

6. Even though I could easily do a task myself, I delegate it to expand my followers’ skills. (IC)

7. Team reativity and innovation are the keys to success. (IS)

8. I encourage my followers to question their most basic way of thinking. (IS)

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To learn more about our  services, please contact the office: +353-1-6688891 or info@davittcorporatepartners.com

Discover how DavittCorporatePartners can help you to:

Develop Leadership in Your Organisation

Win the War for Talent

Realise Individual Potential

Align Behaviour with Corporate Values

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Amber Hanna is a Trainee Work and Organisational Psychologist at DavittCorporatePartners – Corporate Psychologists

By Aoife Harrington, July 2010

With the globalisation of the economy and the diversification of the labour market, more and more organisations are relying on multi-cultural teams (MCT). Although MCTs often produce more creative solutions and better quality decisions, they can also bring with them complex group dynamics, unique communication issues and a greater potential for interpersonal conflict.

In order to better understand cultural differences, this article will draw primarily on Hofstede’s (1980) Model of Culture – based on data from over 100,000 people in 40 countries.

In brief, Hofstede proposed that there are 5 main dimensions on which cultures can vary;

• Power Distance – the degree to which less powerful members of institutions and organisations expect and accept that power is distributed unequally
• Uncertainty Avoidance – the degree of tolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty
• Individualism – the extent to which individuals are integrated into groups and how people define themselves apart from their group membership
• Masculinity – the value placed on traditionally male versus female values in society
• Long-Term Orientation – the degree to which a society embraces long term devotion to tradition and commitment and also their degree of receptivity to change

Some key cultural differences will now be outlined and the implications for MCTs at work will be discussed.

• Agreeing on Task and Process Strategies:

Like all teams at work, MCTs need to arrive at a common approach to working together. Reaching an agreement from the outset on how meetings will be conducted and what conduct is appropriate during meetings is particularly important in MCTs. In high uncertainty avoidance cultures, setting agendas is essential as they bring a sense of predictability and structure to meetings.  For cultures with low uncertainty avoidance, however, meeting agendas and sticking to them rigidly can be seen as repressive and potentially stifling creativity.

• Goal Setting:

Cultural differences will play a key role in how goals are set and what these goals entail. Some cultures would interpret the very act of goal setting as task-orientated and insensitive to the needs of the social group. As such, time should be dedicated to establishing a sense of rapport between team members before any goals are set. Different approaches to time will also have an impact on how and when goals are set – depending on whether time is viewed as monochromic or polychromic.

• Assigning Roles and Responsibilities:

Choosing who does what and who will take the lead can be problematic in MCTs. Who is chosen as the team’s leader and what their responsibilities are is an important decision that the team must make. Cultures can differ significantly in the degree to which the leader is seen as a facilitator versus a decision maker and also the extent to which the team leader can be challenged.

• Choosing How to Communicate:

The first step in communication is to choose the working language for the MCT. In order to facilitate communication, members should be encouraged to speak slowly and to try to express their view points in alternative ways. Particularly in times of emotional conflict, communication can become even more difficult within MCTs. Translating feelings into words can be very difficult when people are upset and often people do not know equivalent words for emotions across cultures which can lead to misunderstandings.

• Virtual Communication:

As MCTs are often dispersed both temporally and geographically, virtual communication has become a necessity in organisational life. However, by their very nature, online environments tend to be task-focused and restrict social interaction.  In order to create a greater sense of purpose in the virtual MCT, high quality audio and visual technology, that absorbs team members into the scene, should be used.

• Decision Making:

How decisions as reached and implemented can differ from one culture to the next, with some cultures seeking consensus, others favouring majority rule and others still looking to power distance, seniority and longevity.

• Evaluating Performance & Allocating Rewards:

Performance appraisal can be a potential cultural minefield. Appraisal systems, by their very nature, tend to assume that goals can be set and reached and, therefore, that people and time can be managed so to achieve those goals. The allocation of rewards is an equally sensitive issue in MCTs that needs to be handled with care – particularly when people from collectivist and individualistic cultures are members of the same team.

• Conflict Resolution:

It is essential that ways of managing conflict in MCTs are agreed upon in advance, because the way in which conflict is managed can vary significantly form one culture to the next, depending on whether value is placed on maintaining harmonious relationships versus more masculine values like drive and determination to succeed.

In conclusion, MCTs are inherent in organisational life and businesses need to embrace and take advantage of cultural diversity. This involves identifying and discussing differences and not just ignoring them and hoping that they will go away. Most importantly, as boundaries between nations become increasingly blurred, developing a more general cultural awareness and being receptive to cues of cultural differences will allow MCT members to work together to their best effect.

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To learn more about our  services, please contact the office: +353-1-6688891 or info@davittcorporatepartners.com

Discover how DavittCorporatePartners can help you to:

Develop Leadership in Your Organisation

Win the War for Talent

Realise Individual Potential

Align Behaviour with Corporate Values

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Aoife Harrington is a Registered Work and Organisational Psychologist at DavittCorporatePartners – Corporate Psychologists

Great businesses are headed by great leaders.  There are a handful of charismatic figures who lead high-profile organisations and names such as Jack Welch of GE and Steve Jobs of Apple come easily to mind.  There are, however, many, many more very successful businesses where the catalyst for that success is as effective but less visible to the outside world.

So what is it that these men and women are doing that is different?

How do they deliver performance and shareholder value?

Research in over 200 companies and organisations worldwide suggests that about one-third of this difference is due to technical skill and cognitive ability while two-thirds is due to emotional competence. In top leadership positions, over four-fifths of the difference is due to emotional competence.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is often defined as the ability to use your emotions intelligently – that is, to understand how your emotions impact upon the way you think, communicate and influence.  Emotionally intelligent people create effective working relationships, solve problems and increase their capacity to perform.  The idea that personal development can be enhanced through looking at emotions, first achieved popular acceptance in 1995 when writer-psychologist Daniel Goleman published his best selling book “Emotional Intelligence”.

Leaders with high EQ have been shown to add as much as 127% more value to the bottom line of their organization than average leaders. Indeed, how executives handle their own emotions determines how much people want to interact with them.

Even in jobs of medium complexity studies of EQ have found that a top performer is 12 times more productive than those at the bottom and 85 percent more productive than an average performer.

By Aoife Harrington May 2010

Times are tough. Economies are faltering. Businesses are under increasing pressure. Now is the time for organisations to capitalize on their strengths, particularly their human capital, and one way of doing this is through employee empowerment. Empowerment is a buzz word that has been bandied about for many years – overused and misused in many contexts – but what exactly is it and how can it be best achieved in order to make sure that your business makes the most of its human capital?

Fundamentally, empowerment is about recognising and releasing into the organisation the power that people already have within them in terms of their experience, knowledge and motivation. It represents a move away from traditional top down models of management and involves a controlled transfer of authority, responsibility and power to people at different levels of the organisation. Essentially empowerment allows employees to think, act, function and make decisions in autonomous ways.

Empowerment has been found to be associated with significant organisational gains, including an increase in work commitment and job satisfaction, commitment to organisational goals, better team performance and increased product and service quality. It has also been found to have a positive impact on employee turnover and employee stress levels as it promotes greater role clarity.  Giving power to your people will not only make them happier and more productive, it will have benefits across the organisation, including the identification of high potential performers and freeing up more time for business leaders to focus on strategic thinking, more complex problem solving and others executive leadership matters.

Organisations often take for granted, however, that employees will welcome and indeed be committed to empowerment. It’s not just a case of convincing employees that they are powerful, however, employees must consider themselves to have gained some power. One of the most important messages for organisations today is that it is individuals that must make the choice of whether to be empowered or not, leaders simply create the environment in which individuals can make that choice.

8 Steps to Creating an Empowerment Environment

1. 1. Improve Communication:

• Progressively sharing vital and often sensitive company information will develop a sense of mutual trust between management and employees and will facilitate employees making informed, independent decisions.
• Communication must be two-way: it is not only important for management to keep employees in the loop on what’s going on in the business but they should be willing to listening to staff also.
• Upward communication provides a means for employees to express their views and grievances openly to management.
• Getting employee to share their points of view can be encouraged by using suggestion boxes, brain storming, focus groups and quality circles and the output from this should be evaluated and implemented, by management, as appropriate.

1. 2. Provide Training & Learning Opportunities:

• Organisations must remember that people often don’t have the necessary skills or capabilities to deal with the new responsibilities that have been bestowed on them through empowerment and thus employees need to be helped to become more competent by providing regular and continuous training.
• Employees should also be given the opportunity to network with one another and to shadow the work of others so that they can build their level of confidence and their skills repertoire.
• Since empowerment is also about seizing opportunities for personal growth and self-fulfilment, organic approaches to training should also focus on helping employees to gain a sense of ownership in the organisation and provide opportunities for personal growth and change within the empowered work role.

1. 3. Change the Corporate Culture:

• It is fundamentally important that mangers do not just pay lip service to the idea of empowerment. Before the concept is even introduced to employees, the organisation need to get buy in from managers and to educate them on what exactly empowerment is.
• This process should begin by defining what exactly empowerment is and establishing policies and strategies on how it can be introduced across the organisation.
• Barriers that limit employees from acting in empowered ways will also need to be identified and removed.

1. 4. Adapt the Organisational Structure:

• Empowerment does not mean that organisational leaders are no longer responsible for performance but rather that they are now responsible for creating a culture in which employee contribution is valued and cultivated.
• Management at all levels will need to be made aware that while strong leadership will be important at the outset when introducing employee empowerment, mangers will need to gradually adapt to more participative management styles to support the empowerment process going forward.
• Provision of training will be important in this regard and should focus on how to flatten organisational structures,  move on from micro managing employees and increases employee access to the information required to make autonomous decisions.

1. 5. Set Boundaries:

• It is important that although employees are delegated control and autonomy, clear boundaries are set.
• Managers must be open and honest about what decisions employees can make and which they cannot.
• Employees should be taught how to set realistic, specific and measurable goals.
• Accountability needs to be passed down to employees as well as control.

1. 6. Reward Employee Participation:

• In order to prevent employees from feeling that empowerment is being used as a front for getting them to do more for less, the organisation’s reward system needs to be changed
• Contingent rewards systems including pay for performance and profit sharing initiatives help to forge a sense of ownership between the employee and the organisation.
• Individual performance-based reward-systems also work well in empowered organisations.
• Managers must remember to reward employees in visible ways and provide them with continuous, constructive feedback on their performance.
• Praise for accomplishment and acknowledgement of effort will also ensure that employees feel rewarded for taking on additional responsibilities.

1. 7. Support Empowered Employees:

• A safe environment should be created where people can learn to cope with their responsibilities and try out new skills.
• Employees should not be punished for making mistakes but rather they should be urged to learn from them and do better next time.
• Provision of support for the integration of employee work and family lives
• Developing networks between employees which will help to build wider and stronger relationships at work which will be a source of social support.

1. 8. Support the Power Sharers:

• Organisations must not forget to support the power sharers in empowerment initiatives, which, more often than not, are middle managers. Often middle managers are most resistant to empowerment initiatives as they fear that the organisation will no longer need them and that they will be made redundant.
• Organisations should try to increase the scope of delegation of responsibilities from senior management to middle management
• Training should be provided for middle managers in how to effectively manage and lead empowered teams

Although difficult to define, empowerment is a concept that most organisations must at least consider if they wish to retain their competitive edge. It is important that organisations recognise that empowerment will not happen overnight but that it will take some time before employees feel truly empowered. By training employees in the necessary skills, improving lines of communication, flattening the organisational structure, creating a culture of participation and supporting the power sharers, the process of empowerment is likely to be accelerated and collective organisational success will ensure.

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To learn more about our  services, please contact the office: +353-1-6688891 or info@davittcorporatepartners.com

Discover how DavittCorporatePartners can help you to:

Develop Leadership in Your Organisation

Win the War for Talent

Realise Individual Potential

Align Behaviour with Corporate Values

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Aoife Harrington is a Consultant Organisational Psychologist at DavittCorporatePartners – Corporate Psychologists

“You’ve got me – but who’s got you?”

Learn the skills required to develop your personal resilience

This year, are you wrestling with delivering the same results on a reduced budget in your role?

Are you trying to pick up the pieces in an organisation where your colleagues have been made redundant?

Are the demands of your work role affecting your enjoyment of the other roles you have in your personal life?

Most organisations – and the people who work in them – are going through huge change at the moment. Many people are doing their best in the face of their concerns about the market, the economy and the future.

People are being asked to play their part, yet many are challenged by not knowing what to do with their own lives and careers. While some have choices that they’re not sure they can make, others are being forced to make significant decisions in their lives based on changes that are happening to them that they had not foreseen.

What is needed is clear thinking, an ability to see the opportunities that are there, a focus on doing the important things, keeping existing customers and business relationships and a determination to go out and be even better than before.

We are delighted to offer a highly experiential and engaging workshop for managers and employees who are faced with the daily challenge of change.

By attending this workshop, participants will learn about;

• The five ingredients of personal resilience
• The positive impact of being more resilient
• Some practical tools that you can apply to build your own ‘personal resilience’
• Some powerful questions to ask to create a more resilient way of thinking
• The power of critically examining your own ‘performance’ in work and life

The specific content and duration of this workshop can be tailored to meet your organisation’s specific requirements.

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To find out how we can help give your colleagues the skills they need to build their own personal resilience, please contact the office: +353-1-6688891 or info@davittcorporatepartners.com

Discover how DavittCorporatePartners can help you to:

Develop Leadership in Your Organisation

Win the War for Talent

Realise Individual Potential

Align Behaviour with Corporate Values

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jonathan Logue is a Senior Consultant at DavittCorporatePartners – Corporate Psychologists

Marketing Age – Moving On Up Issue 1 2010

or visit their website:  here

If redundancy and workforce transitioning is managed properly, businesses can ensure that valued employees make the transitions into new roles and organisations, while remaining staff are kept motivated and engaged, according to DavittCorporatePartners, Ireland’s leading organisational psychology consultancy, which provides client’s with proven psychological solutions to enhance their business performance.

Outplacement and career transitioning services assist organisations to: increase motivation among remaining employees; improve their ability to retain key staff; project a positive image; and alleviate feelings of anger and fear. individuals can be helped to understand their potential and how to use it to their advantage as well as increasing self awareness and confidence.

Find out more at info@davittcorporatepartners.com

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To learn more about our  Career services, please contact the office: +353-1-6688891 or info@davittcorporatepartners.com

Discover how DavittCorporatePartners can help you to:

Develop Leadership in Your Organisation

Win the War for Talent

Realise Individual Potential

Align Behaviour with Corporate Values

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

By Amber Hanna

It seems that stress has become an unavoidable side effect in today’s workplace. Rapidly changing market demands have added an extra layer of unpredictability and stress to the already stressful day to day experiences of many businesses in Ireland. Increasingly the causes of increased stress are outside our control, when this is the case the best way to tackle rising stress levels is to prepare yourself and begin to learn how to modify your response to these unexpected and increasingly difficult stressors. This article will offer some tips on how you can begin to actively manage your own stress levels.

The single most effective way to enhance our capability to deal with stress is by improving one’s overall physical condition.  Research confirms that the better your overall physical condition, the more able you are to cope with stress.  Good physical condition has also been linked to higher self esteem and a more positive outlook on life in general.  Physical condition is largely determined by diet, nutrition and exercise – subjects that are well beyond our capacity to cover here in any depth.  Most of us freely acknowledge the potential benefits of improved physical condition, while our attempts to manage ourselves in this respect meet with varying degrees of success. A key point is that exercise, in particular, is an energy source, not an energy drain.  Time set aside for exercise is guaranteed to lead to enhanced focus and productivity in any work role and as such is a great way to develop our capacity to deal with stress.

We can also increase our stress capacity by developing our emotional resiliency. Self awareness can help us manage stress by increasing our ability to understand and predict our responses to events and the way others will react to us.   Self awareness can be developed for example via personality profiles (e.g., Myers Briggs, 16PF or the EQI) or by feedback, including 360 feedback from colleagues.  Psychologists also believe that self talk is also an important determinant of how we feel in any given situation. Negative self talk is itself a barrier to performance and a source of stress.   Regardless of the context, negative self talk will only make things worse; conversely, positive self talk can help reduce stress.

Learn how to manage stress

When you feel like the stress in your life may be getting out of control, remember that while you may not be able to control life’s stressors you can control your response to them. The number one thing to take into account when trying to manage stress is to take charge! You can manage the stress in your life by taking charge of your thoughts, your emotions, your schedule, your environment, and the way you deal with problems. Stress management involves changing the stressful situation when you can, changing your reaction when you can’t, taking care of yourself, and making time for rest and relaxation.

People deal with stressful situations in their own unique way. Psychologists have grouped the variety of coping methods people employ into three groups. These are, problem focused coping, emotion focused coping and seeking social support.

Problem focused coping occurs in people who reduce their anxiety about an upcoming event by focussing on the problem at hand. Preparing power point slides and rehearsing questions in advance for that upcoming presentation for example. People who use this method directly confront their problem and try and change the situation so it is no longer stressful for them.

Emotion focused coping strategies occur when people try to manage their own response to a stressful situation rather than directly face the problem. Forms of this response can vary from avoidance of the situation altogether to grim acceptance that the situation can’t be changed so ‘I have to just get on with it’.

The last type of coping strategy employed by people under stress is that of seeking social support which involves to turning to others for assistance and emotional support in times of stress.

Research has shown that a combination of problem focused coping and seeking social support lead to the best outcomes for people under stress. Unsurprisingly, emotion focused coping strategies that centre on avoidance, denial or wishful thinking do not result in favourable outcomes. However emotion focused strategies that are useful for tackling stress include those that involve identifying your own emotional responses and trying to change irrational negative thinking patterns regarding stressful situations.

For many people stress in today’s workplace situations may be outside their control. In these cases problem focused solutions involving changing the situation so it no longer causes stress may not be possible. When this is the case emotion focused coping strategies may be the most effective option, because even if it not possible to change the situation we can change our responses, preventing or controlling further negative effects of stress resulting from our own negative responses to stress.

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To learn more about our  services, please contact the office: +353-1-6688891 or info@davittcorporatepartners.com

Discover how DavittCorporatePartners can help you to:

Develop Leadership in Your Organisation

Win the War for Talent

Realise Individual Potential

Align Behaviour with Corporate Values

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Amber Hanna is a trainee Organisational Psychologist at DavittCorporatePartners – Corporate Psychologists

Most readers of this article may own a car and many will drive a car on a daily basis. We get in, start the car, drive off and arrive at our destination. Very few of us are aware or conscious of the complex mesh of knowledge, experience, judgement and co-ordination that are involved in what, for many of us, is a basic, routine daily task. There is a name for this – it is called “unconscious competence”. This term describes behaviour that is so deeply embedded in our routine that we do not know that we know how to do it!

Now driving is a fairly basic example. When we shift our attention to what happens in the workplace, the picture does not appear as clear. Although the underlying principles are the same, the most basic of jobs has an element of unconscious competence. The more senior the role, the more performance becomes a function not just of what is done but of the way in which it is done. High performers demonstrate exceptional levels of unconscious competence. While this is taken for granted when the economy and organisations are in a “steady state” it demands close attention in times of discontinuous change.

Traditional careers are a bit like driving a car. We join an organisation, progress at variable speed to our destination – retirement. Along the way, we acquire experience, knowledge, skills and some wisdom. If, however, we ask individuals about what they do, the chance is that they will answer in terms of their role or responsibility. Typically this will be “I’m Head of Logistics” or “I’m responsible for the Marketing Department”. These responses are spontaneous; they reveal how the individual sees him or herself. The label is the job title, an allusion to what they are there to do and why they are in the organisation. This response does not acknowledge of what they are capable or, critically, at what they are unconsciously competent.

Everyone makes their job their own. Subtly they shape it to fit their own skills and experience. The job itself is not subverted; rather it is adapted so that the individual finds the easiest way for him or herself to deliver the required results.

Essentially, each of us has a unique set of gifts that we learn to deploy in the context of the job that we do. The boundary between what we do and what the job is becomes hazy. For most, the shorthand of “I’m an accountant” substitutes for the acknowledgement of a genuine description of capability.

When the world changes, however, it is barely adequate to retain the label “Accountant” when the market is awash with hundreds of “Accountants” all looking for a job. Taking a less cataclysmic view, is it sufficient to expect an accountant to make the transition to Finance Director? Perhaps not! In both cases, decisions to appoint will be made not on the basis of a job title but on a judgement about how someone might do the job. The more senior the role, the greater the impact of “how things are done” not just “what is done”.

The individual’s capability, the “how” they do things, is the exercise of their knowledge, skills, experience and judgement. The job context has an influence but this is more about the impact of organisational climate and culture on the individual and the degree to which it fits with the individual’s preferred way of working.

As change quickens in pace and security of employment is in flux, the people best placed to grasp the opportunities will be those who know best their capabilities and can match their knowledge, skills, experience and judgement to new and different roles.

An interesting observation is that, when asked about what they have achieved most people struggle to identify anything significant. This is not because the achievement is absent but it is associated with “just doing my job”. Experience from working with a wide range of different individuals argues compellingly for a simple self-assessment process to begin to reveal the “career assets” – the transferable knowledge, skills, experience and judgement. In outline the process follows this kind of flow:

• Think of targets, goals or objectives met;
• Examine what you decided to do and how you did it;
• Identify what would have happened had you not acted;
• Analyse

o what you did,

o how you decided,

o how you got resources,

o who you had to persuade and how.

The results of your analysis should describe your career assets. This understanding of career assets allows the individual to make informed decisions about where and how to invest their effort in the future.

So far, this piece has focused on the individual and their fit to the organisation. The same applies to organisations and the extent to which they understand the human capital represented by the workforce.

In the same way that the individual is at the mercy of external factors, so is the organisation. An understanding of the capability of an organisation’s human capital can be a key strategic lever in meeting the challenge of a changing environment.

A good illustration of how this works is the way that IBM moved from being a manufacturer of hardware to a consultancy-led organisation delivering integrated solutions. This was effected by the careful re-purposing of the human capital within the organisation to change the character of the business, building success upon success.

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To learn more about our  Career services, please contact the office: +353-1-6688891 or info@davittcorporatepartners.com

Discover how DavittCorporatePartners can help you to:

Develop Leadership in Your Organisation

Win the War for Talent

Realise Individual Potential

Align Behaviour with Corporate Values

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Andrew Harley is a Senior Consultant at DavittCorporatePartners – Corporate Psychologists

Although coaching and counselling represent relatively recent additions to the range of human service professions, both have undergone significant growth and development over the last few decades. In fact it has been reported that coaching is now the second-fastest growing profession in the world, rivaled only by information technology (Williams, 2008) while the uptake of counselling has also seen a sharp rise, particularly in western industrialised societies (McLeod, 2003). Much confusion exists, however, amongst the general public, and indeed professionals alike, as to what the difference is between coaching and counselling – with many people treating them as one and the same.

According to the International Coaching Federation (ICF), coaching can be defined as ‘an ongoing partnership that helps clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives’. It represents a form of personalised, supported learning undertaken for the accomplishment of goals in a chosen area of focus, be that professional or personal (Goldberg, 1999). In the coaching relationship, the coach partners the client in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their potential. Although it can take many forms, counselling can be broadly defined as a highly skilled intervention focused on helping individuals address underlying psychological problems. Counselling is, therefore, a therapeutic relationship between counselor and client and although it can be viewed as a helping behaviour or a repertoire of interventions it is, most fundamentally, a psychological process (McLeod, 2003).

Part of the reason for the blurring of boundaries between coaching and counselling is because – as disciplines or helping professions – they share many similar qualities. Both are based on a client/practitioner model and, for the most part, are conducted by skilled practitioners. There is also an overlap in terms of their basic philosophies – with both coaching and (many) counselling initiatives embracing the client as the centre of the process and the masters of their own destinies. Both focus on the needs and goals of the client, emphasise the importance of rapport building and active listening and often use goal setting and action planning techniques. Moreover, the core skills employed by the coach and the counsellor are in many cases the same, with emphasis placed on the fostering of trust, respect, openness and confidentiality. In terms of outcomes, counselling and coaching can often result in similar behaviour change or adaptation of behaviour and can help clients to foster a greater understanding or awareness of their underlying thoughts, cognition and emotional reactions in a given situation.

Despite such similarities, however, there are a number of key aspects of coaching that differentiate it from counselling.

-          To begin, the nature of the client/practitioner relationship tends to be different in counselling, as there is a greater power differential. Specifically, the relationship is much more defined in counselling with the therapist typically taking charge of the counselling session, diagnosing the client’s situation and then providing professional expertise and guidelines to map out a path to healing. By contrast, there is more of an equal partnership in coaching.

-          In line with the power differential discussed above, the level of expertise associated with coaching and counselling tends to differ.  Specifically, clients typically come to counselling with a problem and the counsellor is seen as an expert who will attempt to remedy this problem. Coaching is not about what the coach delivers, however, but what the client creates and, therefore, coaches are not seen as experts, but rather as guides and resource providers.

-          Following on from this, the skills set, training and experience of counsellors tends to differ – and often exceed – that of coaches, due to the nature of the issues under discussion and resolution. As counselling often leads to deep and intense emotional experiences, it demands skillful guidance from an experienced practitioner. The need to study complex theories of human behaviour, however, is less important for coaches simply because coaching is more concerned with process than actual content.

-          Another key differentiating factor is the reactive nature of counselling, typically focusing on the resolution of problems, particularly those of an emotional or interpersonal nature. By contrast, coaching is much more proactive and thus tends not to be about solving problems, although, in the process, issues under consideration may become resolved in a way that restores balance to the client’s life.

-          Although both coaching and counselling are goal driven, how goals are actually formed and the role on the coach in goal setting tends to be quite different in coaching. Specifically, the goals of coaching are formulated and determined solely by the client. The coach’s role in establishing goals is to help the client stay focused on working towards those goals (making sure they are achievable, realistic, measurable and linked to a specific time frame). In order to achieve this, coaches must ask key questions of the client in order to gather information, build and maintain the relationship, inspire them to think clearly and creatively and, most critically, to make requests and initiate action.

-          Another key differential in terms of coaching versus counselling is the degree to which the focus is on the past versus the present/future. Coaching primarily focuses on a person’s present, in order to help them create actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in their life while counselling tends to be primarily concerned with exploring past events or issue. While the past may be discussed on occasion in coaching, it is typically only addressed in the context of discovering what is blocking the client from moving forward in their current and future roles and in the context of goal attainment.

-          One final area for consideration is that the boundaries tend to be somewhat different in coaching compared to counselling/therapeutic relationships, with coaching allowing for greater flexibility. Specifically, there tends to be more scope in how and when coaching is delivered, for example, coaching can take place in a variety of locations and often utilizes various media of communication, including email and teleconference facilities. Counselling on the other hand typically takes place in the same location (often a counsellor’s room’s) on a regular basis, with little scope for deviation.

In summary, although both coaching and counselling are person-centered, holistic approaches that are primarily concerned with meeting the needs of the client, in a safe and structured environment – a number of key differences set them apart. In brief, coaching is a future-orientated, strengths based, proactive, challenging, non-judgmental process whereby the coach partners the client in a journey of self-discovery. The process is fundamentally important in coaching, often more so than outcomes, and it is the client’s responsibility to set the agenda and goals for coaching, with the coach monitoring progress and holding the client accountable. By contrast, counselling is a remedial, directive, therapeutic, retrospective intervention and is orientated to the clients past experiences and the resolution of problems. Importantly, what will be crucial for both disciplines going forward will be to educate people on the merit and utility of both coaching and counselling, and most fundamentally, to create a better understanding of when and in what context each will be most appropriately employed.

References

Goldberg, M.C. (1999). Expert question asking: The engine of successful coaching. The   Manchester Review; University of Manchester.

McLeod, J. (2003). An introduction to counselling, 3^rd edition. McGraw-Hill, Open University Press London.

Williams, R. (2008). Executive coaching: The secret weapon for high impact leadership. National Post. Vancouver, CA.

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Aoife Harrington is a Consultant at DavittCorporatePartners – Corporate Psychologists