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Team members joining their hands as a symbol of collaboration

Coaching as a Tool for Social Development

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According to the ICF Global Coaching Study 2016, carried out by ICF (International Coaching Federation) in collaboration with PWC, in 137 countries worldwide, the findings suggest that coaching can influence social change.

Worldwide, 51% of professional coaches surveyed and 49% of managers/directors, with coaching skills, consider that coaching is capable of greatly influencing social change. 33% of professional coaches and 27% of managers/directors, with coaching skills, consider that coaching is capable of moderately influencing social change.

The extent to which professional coaches consider coaching to be able to influence social change varies considerably from region to region.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, two out of every three coaches surveyed (68%) consider that coaching is capable of greatly influencing social change.

According to the ICF Global Consumer Awareness Study 2017, a study carried out by ICG and PWC in 30 countries, the main two benefits recognised in ICF studies on satisfaction with Coaching are improved communication skills (42%), followed by greater self-esteem / self-confidence (40%).

These are skills that create bridges in families, in organisations, in communities, that support a more balanced social and professional integration and that contribute to sustainable social and economic development.

Coaching as a development tool can be applied at different stages of life.
In young people, in professional adults, and in older adults, it contributes to creating greater awareness of one’s own value, to broaden perspectives for personal and professional development, to give a purpose to life and to build a legacy.

It is a tool that supports facing the challenges of each stage of life and conceiving opportunities in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous and hyper-connected world (VUCAH).
The improvement of communication skills, the improvement of self-esteem and self-confidence help to reduce isolation in current societies, contributing to a higher level of social integration.

At the organisational level, using coaching as a development tool also brings positive contributions and coaching can contribute to issues such as gender equality, diversity and inclusion.
In the 2017 ICF Global Consumer Awareness Study, the most commonly cited reason for seeking coaching was optimizing individual team work performance (43%), and the third most commonly cited benefit was increased productivity (39%).

Coaching as a tool for social development is thus transversal in society, applying to individuals, communities and nonprofit or profit organisations, collaborating on issues connected to corporate social responsibility and sustainable development objectives.

Fatima Ribeiro

A team gathered around a table to share ideas

The Future of Leadership

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Recently attending a webinar by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith on the topic “leadership yesterday, today and tomorrow” and discussing leadership in educational media, motivated me to dedicate this article to the topic of leadership and its role in today’s society.
The current challenges of a global, complex, changing and diverse world demand different leadership.

The leader is no longer understood as a task-focused superior being who provides structure and direction but as a facilitator who is involved in dialogue and the participation of all.

“The leader of the past knew how to say, the leader of the future will know how to ask,” is a quote from Peter Drucker. For Paul Hersey “leadership is working with and through others to achieve objectives.”

Peter Hawkins tells us that the very concept of intelligence today is evolving. The concept of intelligence progressed from the intelligence quotient IQ to the emotional quotient EQ, and currently we are moving to the WeQ, that is, to the concept of collaborative intelligence.

The leader of the future demonstrates high interest, simultaneously in tasks or objectives and in people, and his behaviour changes according to what is required by the situation.

It is advisable to analyse the level of preparation of the teams, the autonomy in the decision and the level of power, prior to choosing the leadership style or the decision-making style.

Peter Hawkins believes that the people who will be most successful in the future will be those who have the greatest skills in establishing connections.

This reminds me of a quote from Jared Weiner at APEDE’s 2017 CADE Annual Executive Conference, “Soft skills like relationship building, collaboration, empathy, and cultural sensitivity will become the currency of the highest order. People with hybrid skills – high technological skill and deep social sensitivity – will win in the future.”

Global thinking, cultural and intercultural diversity, alliance building, intelligent technological knowledge and shared leadership (the leader as facilitator) are emerging dimensions of the global leader of the future, in the global leadership assessment model of MGSCC – Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching.

This MGSCC model is an interesting evaluation to serve as the basis for a coaching process for leadership development, in a structured, measurable and inclusive process of the stakeholders or people of interest around the leader, since leadership only truly exists when it is recognised. The model provides the structure and direction and the coach is a facilitator of learning.

Fatima Ribeiro