Exploring the impact of participation in a Leader as Coach programme using the Personal Case Study Approach

Abstract

Effective coaching skills are an essential part of contemporary leadership. All too frequently organisations invest significant resources into ‘Leader as Coach’ development programmes only to find that, despite initial enthusiasm, coaching skills are not applied back in the workplace. To facilitate such transfer of training we utilised and evaluated a new approach to evaluating and embedding coaching skills, the Personal Case Study Approach (PSCA), and we used this in a large-scale ‘Leader as Coach’ programme for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). This paper presents the theoretical rationale underpinning the PSCA, its practical application and data related to its use in a two-day ‘Leader as Coach’ coaching programme. The data indicates that the coaching programme was effective at enhancing quality of leadership and coaching skills as well as increasing participants’ ability to recognise when to coach and when to delegate. The programme also increased workplace engagement. The PSCA, when used in a ‘Leader as Coach’ programme, appears to be an effective way of enhancing and fostering transfer of training.