What Value do Senior Women & their Organisations Get from Coaching?

The proportion of men and women in the workplace are roughly equal and yet women continue to be vastly under-represented. In part 1 of this series, we’re exploring the value of leadership coaching to address this complex issue.

Introduction.
The proportion of men and women in the workplace are roughly equal and yet women continue to be vastly under-represented particularly at senior levels. A recent report identified that only about one in five senior leaders is a woman, and one in 25 is a woman of colour.

Many organisations strive to improve their gender equality because there is a strong business case to do so: having more senior women executives enables better decision making and a more balanced approach to risk. A recent McKinsey study of 1000 companies in 12 countries found a correlation between diversity at the executive level and both profitability and value creation.

It is important to ask what value senior women and their organisations can gain from coaching. Research has shown that coaching has had a significantly positive impact on women who take on senior roles. To add to the body of evidence, we share our findings on the impact of coaching on individuals and their organisations.

At Praesta UK, we are proud to coach over 250 of the UK’s most senior leaders at Board, Executive and high potential levels each year. Around half of these leaders are senior women. This Insight is based on a survey we conducted of the 267 senior women whom we have coached over the past two years. These women come from across the sectors and the breakdown of the seniority of the women and sectors in which they work is shown below.

Our confidential coaching provides key insights into the issues that women are facing at senior levels and on what is holding them back. We conducted a similar survey five years ago and we have compared the findings and commented on how the situation has shifted. We provide recommendations for what organisations and women now need to do to overcome these blocks in order to have more diverse and effective senior leadership teams.

What are the main benefits organisations report from coaching senior women?
There were many benefits from the coaching for the individual coachees and the organisations that employed them. The main benefits are described in the following section, and those for the coachee are illustrated in the word cloud (below).

(This word cloud is a visual representation of text data from the research)

Individual Impact
Coaches reported that their coachees had:

• Achieved promotion — many gained promotions, including some to Board level positions.
• Integrated successfully — transitioning into a new job was a common trigger for many women to embark on coaching and they reported having made smooth, successful starts in their new roles.
• Renewed self-confidence — female coachees raised issues relating to self-confidence early in the coaching relationship and they experienced increased self-confidence and self-belief and recognised their strengths.
• Enhanced well-being — many felt more emotionally resilient at work, less stressed and more able to let go of previous negative experiences. They also pointed to having established better boundaries in their work and home lives.
• Clarity about the role and their leadership style — having a better understanding of the leadership role, a clearer understanding of who they are and how they lead and being able to articulate this to others.
• Stronger impact — coachees received feedback that they were communicating in a more assertive, concise and clear manner. They considered that they had improved relationships with line managers and peers through adopting a more flexible range of influencing styles and for some this included working more effectively in multi-cultural environments.
• Increased strategic focus — many referred to focusing on delivering through their teams, delegating more and pushing back where needed. They developed their strategic skills, concentrating on where they could best add value.
• Built alliances — by developing their political savvy and networking skills during the coaching, coachees were able to build effective alliances and perform more effectively in their roles.

Organisational impact
The Praesta approach is to align closely the individual’s and organisation’s coaching objectives. The main outcomes of the coaching for the senior women’s organisations were:

• Improved board decision-making and dynamics — organisations provided feedback that coachees were getting their voices heard at board level, were contributing on a wider, more effective basis and bringing different perspectives which strengthened board decision making and enabled the board to work more effectively together.
• Improved organisational culture — the impact of senior leaders demonstrating a wider range of influencing skills, being more politically savvy, using a coaching style and doing more networking contributed to a more collaborative culture.
• Increased retention — coachees remained in the organisations when they might otherwise have left and also made broader career moves, for example, moving internationally.
• Enhanced results — organisations became more customer-centric, improved their systems and increased their bottom line results.

In part 2 of this series, we’ll explore the main triggers for women who request coaching, and ask if they are different from the main male triggers. You can download the whole research paper here…