Coaching for Leadership: The Practice of Leadership Coaching from the World's Greatest Coaches [Hardcover]

Marshall Goldsmith (Editor), Laurence S. Lyons (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 19, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0787977632 | ISBN-13: 978-0787977634 | Edition: 2nd

When it was published in 2000, Coaching for Leadership became an instant classic in the field of executive coaching. This second edition updates and expands on the original book and brings together the best executive coaches who offer a basic understanding of how coaching works, why it works, and how leaders can make the best use of the coaching process. This thoroughly revised edition reflects recent changes in coaching practices, includes well-researched best practices, and provides additional guidance and tools from the greatest leadership coaches from around the world. Each chapter in this important volume addresses a proven application, offers key principles of practice, and highlights critical learning points.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Coaching for Leadership

"This is a significant addition to the authors' earlier works, and comes at a most timely point in the continuing evolution of corporate leadership. The complexities of today's business challenges are prompting leaders at all levels to seek out professional coaching support, and this book does a great job in exploring the options, insights, and practices."
—Jon R. Katzenbach, founding partner, Katzenbach Partners LLC, and author, Why Pride Matters

When it was published in 2000, Coaching for Leadership became an instant classic in the field of executive coaching. This second edition updates and expands on the original book and brings together the best executive coaches who offer a basic understanding of how coaching works, why it works, and how leaders can make the best use of the coaching process. This thoroughly revised edition reflects recent changes in coaching practices, includes well-researched best practices, and provides additional guidance and tools from the greatest leadership coaches from around the world. Each chapter in this important volume addresses a proven application, offers key principles of practice, and highlights critical learning points.

A timely book, Coaching for Leadership covers important new concepts and Shows when coaching is necessary and when it is needed most

• Explains how different coaching styles embrace various practices
• Shows how coaching applies to different situations
• Describes how to engage human resource professionals in the process
• Demonstrates how to manage leadership coaching programs
• Illustrates how to make leadership coaching align with key OD values, such as dignity and collaboration
• Shows how to negotiate the return on investment conversation between human resources and finance
• Details how to make process consultation work in leadership coaching.

The second edition of Coaching for Leadership is a practical resource that is filled with best practices, sample scenarios, case studies, and hands-on tools.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Coaching for Leadership

"This book is the single best collection of first-rate articles on executive coaching. It covers every base from leading change to strategy and should be on the bookshelf of every student and practitioner of leadership and organizational development."
—Warren Bennis, University Professor and Distinguished Professor of business, University of Southern California,and author, On Becoming a Leader, and coauthor, Geeks and Geezers

"What a resource! In Coaching for Leadership, the world's best coaches come together to present an advanced tutorial on the art of coaching. Anyone interested in becoming an executive coach, either as an individual practice or within his or her organization, must immediately buy and read this essential hands-on guide."
—Sally Helgesen, author, The Female Advantage and The Web of Inclusion

"This exceptional book is a must read for individuals at all levels of the organization. Coaches, HR managers, and executives hoping to become coaches will benefit greatly from the concepts, practices, and techniques brought to light in Coaching for Leadership."
—Vijay Govindarajan, Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business, and director, Center for Global Leadership

"This book is very important and valuable reading for executives who are reaching retirement and moving into another important area of contribution: coaching others to become effective executives. It is no less significant for corporate HR executives who are increasingly called upon to manage coaching interventions on behalf of their companies' leaders."
—D. Quinn Mills, professor, Harvard Business School

"Coaching is a critical business skill in today's fast-changing world. Coaching for Leadership pulls together insightful contributions from several renowned coaches. This book is a must read for leaders and future leaders."
—Dr. Homa Bahrami, senior lecturer, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Pfeiffer; 2nd edition (October 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787977632
• ISBN-13: 978-0787977634
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 1.1 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #697,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A first primer for executive coaching August 6, 2007

By A. Cheney

Format:Hardcover

Perhaps these are the world's greatest executive coaches, but I struggle with the suspicion that they are, more precisely, friends and associates of the editors. All but one or two of the contributors are Americans, so that I'm reminded of John Cleese's comment, when asked to compare Britons and Americans, that "when we Brits have a World Championship, we invite teams from other countries." Perhaps there are no excellent executive coaches from outside the United States. More likely, "world's greatest" was the publisher's idea.

But marketing hyperbole aside, this is a nice volume on an important and potentially lucrative topic. Executive coaching is definitely hot in the corporate world; a recent Harvard Business Review article (Sherman & Freas, 2004) puts estimated annual spending on executive coaching in the U.S. alone at $1 billion. Those who perform executive coaching include consultants and practitioners of various educational backgrounds, retired executives looking to share their career experience, a bevy of corporate training professionals looking to expand their talents past the classroom, and an assortment of others. It is my "unbiased" opinion that psychologists make the most effective executive coaches. Few non-psychologists have training in human dynamics, personality, learning, motivation, group cohesion, assessment, counseling skills, and other proficiencies necessary to fully effect insight and behavior change in organizational leaders. In another excellent HBR article, Berglas (2002), a psychotherapist, warned that untrained executive coaches have the potential for causing a great deal of damage to individuals and their companies by failing to recognize, or blatantly ignoring, personality disorders or even severe psychopathology that may exist in some they coach. Berglas recommended that, at the very least, executives designated for coaching receive a thorough psychological evaluation before coaching begins. While some business experience in a coach is also nice, I, as one who has both formal graduate training in business and experience working as an employee of two Fortune 100 companies, don't find it the sine qua non that non-psychologist coaches would have us and their potential clients believe.

In my view, one of the major shortcomings of this book is that only 1 of the 30 contributors has (or admits to having!) graduate training in psychology. Had the editors included excellent and well-known executive coaches who are also psychologists, rather than professionals described at the end of each chapter as "a world authority," "a frequent speaker," or (my favorite) "co-author of the most successful organizational behavior textbook of all time," their topic would have been better served.

As it is, the book is worth getting if you are thinking of going into executive coaching. The brief chapter by Edgar Schein (Chapter 2) is in my opinion worth the cost of the book. Schein argues that a distinction must be made between when a client defines the (coaching) situation as "one in which he or she wants individual help to work on a personal issue" and when "a manager asks someone to take on a coaching role to work with an individual to improve job performance or to overcome some developmental deficiencies" (p. 17). In the former instance, "the resulting process can be likened to counseling or therapy," whereas the latter is more analogous to "indoctrination or coercive persuasion" (p. 17). "If an organization `imposes' a coach and a predetermined direction of learning," Schein reminds us, "then by definition we are dealing with indoctrination, not coaching" (p. 18). Schein, a psychologist, states unequivocally the importance of this demarcation. I fear that many non-psychologist coaches would not understand the difference or would not be bothered by it.

Several chapters stand out as highlights. I have mentioned Schein's and would add the chapter by R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr. (Chapter 25). Thomas provides a well laid out discussion of the dynamics of effective coaching relationships in general and also offers insights on "coaching in the context of teams as opposed to individual efforts" (p. 229). Brian Tracy (Chapter 12) constructs a how-to for retired executives considering coaching as a second career. Finally, the case studies in Part Four (Applications) are clarifying and enlightening and add a great deal to the book.

Besides original work, several of the chapters are a repackaging of previously published material, such as Paul Hersey and Roger Chevalier's chapter on "Situational Leadership and Executive Coaching" (Chapter 3) and James Kouzes and Barry Posner's chapter "When Leaders Are Coaches" (Chapter 16), which is an excerpt from their 2003 book. Marshall Goldsmith (one of the editors) contributes five chapters. Personally, I view these as resume-building for the publish-or-perish crowd, but if a reader buys the book, these can be considered a bonus.

Overall, the book serves as a fine primer for those thinking of going into executive coaching, and for those of us already there, it never hurts to benchmark against the "world's greatest."

*This is a condensed version of my review of the book in PsycCRITIQUES--Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 52 (17), 2007.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful tool November 20, 2006

By Ton de Graaf

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

As it states in the foreword by Beverly L. Kaye this book "is the collective thinking of the very best thought leaders in executive coaching". Beverly is absolutely right. If your in the business as an executive coach you will find the tools of the trade in this book. Marshall Goldsmith is one of the editors of this book, so you know you won't get disappointed. Seasoned coaches will be able to learn about subjects like E-coaching, coaching and culture and situational leadership to name a few. But also the novices in executive coaching will learn a lot from the experts. Not only about being a top coach but also tips and tricks on how to set up a thriving practice. The book also addresses the transition from line manager to executive coach which I haven't read before. I can highly recommend this book to both seasoned and fresh executives coaches and those who are thinking about becoming one. Good reading!

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars practical, insightful, informative December 11, 2005

By Simon Vetter

Format:Hardcover

Coaching for Leadership is a valuable collection of essays from some of the most experienced management educators. The book provides research, methods and application stories from different perspectives on leadership coaching, development and effectiveness. The book has depth and is very useful.