Management Development Coaching Styles

As a management development professional you are responsible for developing and

coaching managers at all levels, helping them make decisions and supporting them in

times of crisis. To do this you need a range of counselling skills. The starting

point is to recognise the range of coaching and counselling styles available.

It is possible to identify five separate styles of counselling:

    •    Prescriptive
      •    Interpretive
      •    Supportive
      •    Probing
      •    Understanding

These styles in themselves are neither good nor bad. They all have advantages and

disadvantages. Each is appropriate in some situations and inappropriate in others.

The good manager needs to be flexible in his or her use of each style so as to use

the approach that best suits the individual other person or situation.

Prescriptive Style

An Prescriptive counsellor will tend to either make judgements or offer advice. You

may indicate approval or disapproval of what the other person says or does. You may

in some way imply that you have made a judgement of the relative appropriateness,

effectiveness or rightness of what the other person has said.

The Prescriptive counsellor is also likely to offer solutions or advice on what the

subordinate should or should not do.

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Advantages of Prescriptive Style

1.   There are times when it is appropriate to indicate your own values or views.

2.   The other person may directly ask for and need feedback on whether you feel

his or her actions or suggestions are right or wrong.

3.   People may sometimes need you to give advice or offer positive suggestions -

especially when they are not able to offer their own solutions.

Disadvantages of Prescriptive Style

1.   If the people feel  judged or criticised they are likely to feel inhibited

and be less likely to open up or offer honest ideas and feelings.

2.   If the counsellor is the one who offers solutions to people's problems, the

results can be an increase in dependence. Rather than learning to find his or her own

solutions they may start to rely on the counsellor to produce solutions.

3.   The counsellor may start to offer solutions prematurely - before the actual

problem has been identified and agreed. This can result in suggesting good solutions

to the wrong problem.

Interpretive Style

If a counsellor is using an Interpretive style he or she is 'reading between the

lines' and trying to interpret what the subordinate is saying. The counsellor is

likely to say things like 'what you really mean is...' The objective may be to teach

or impart meaning to the other person by seeing links or sensing messages which they

may not be aware of.

Advantages of Interpretive Style

1.   It may be possible to help the other person see the hitherto hidden

implications in what he says, eg:

      "When you say that you want to be promoted to manager you're also saying that

you want to stop doing the technical work you find so satisfying."

2.   An Interpretive style can often help to break through conscious or

unconscious defence mechanisms, and move the discussion onto a more honest level, eg:

      "You are saying that you're not ambitious. I think you're really saying that

you are ambitious and are frustrated at not getting sufficient opportunities for

advancement.

Disadvantages of Interpretive Style

1.   Reflecting back what the other person has said in a distorted way may appear

to the receiver as poor listening or lack of interest and produce or increase

inhibitions, distrust, annoyance etc.

2.   If your interpretations are incorrect the other person may find it difficult

to tell you so honestly.

Supportive Style

The Supportive style is one which the counsellor uses when wishing to give

reassurance or to pacify he other person. The intention is to reduce their negative

feelings like anger or depression or increase the person's self esteem or confidence.

Supportive responses are those which offer psychological support. Typical Supportive

statements might include:

"That really is a good idea"
"You mustn't upset yourself too much over this"
"Cheer up, bad things happen to us all"
"Of course you can do the job - I have every confidence in you".

Advantages of Supportive Style

1.   Supportive statements can be very encouraging, can raise self esteem and can

increase confidence and enthusiasm.

2.   When Supportive statements are used after a subordinate has suggested a good

solution to their own problem it 'endorses' the behaviour and re-inforces it for the

future.

Disadvantages of Supportive Style

1.   Supportive statements do not move the counselling session on beyond giving

psychological support.

2.   Too many Supportive statements can result in blocking discussion of the real

problem - particularly where there is a genuine deficiency in the subordinate. The

Supportive counsellor might find it difficult to confront deficiencies for fear of

hurting feelings or undermining confidence.

Probing Style

When a counsellor uses a Probing style he or she will be trying to gather further

information, or explore the subordinate's ideas, perceptions or feelings. This style

is characterised by open questions which include words like:

"Why"..........?
"Where"........?
"When".........?
"How"..........?
"What".........?
"Who"..........?
"Tell me more about"..........?

eg

"Could you tell me more about your new field of

interest?"
"Why do you think that happened?"
"What should we do about that?"


Probing style can be used to achieve three objectives.

Firstly it can be used to help the counsellor build up a better picture of the

problem. Secondly, this style can be used to help the other person explore the

dimensions of the problem. A series of probing questions can help him clarify the

problem, explore facts they hadn't previously considered important. Thirdly it can be

used to help the client explore options or make decisions and develop a plan for

implementing their decision.

Advantages of Probing Style

1.   Probing style is useful in ensuring that together the counsellor and client

fully explore the nature of the problem before working on solutions.

2.   Probing can often help the other person reach insights he couldn't have

achieved by himself.

3.   Probing can be developed since it ensures that the subordinate thinks through

the problem for himself.


Disadvantages of Probing Style

1.   Continued probing and questioning can be seen as threatening and can inhibit

the client.

2.   Continued probing might result in analysis paralysis. The counsellor might

go on indefinitely collecting more information about the problem and never get around

to exploring solutions.

Understanding Style

The Understanding style is used when the counsellor wants to check out that he or she

correctly understands what the client is saying, how they feel, how they see the

problem. To do this the counsellor reflects back what the other person is saying or

feeling in an empathetic way.

The Understanding counsellor will say things like:

"You seem to feel frustrated about that"
"You obviously feel strongly about this"
"As I understand it, what you are saying is......"

Advantages of Understanding Style

1.   This process of checking understanding ensures that the counsellor really has

heard and understood what the other person is saying.

2.   Understanding responses effectively deal with the feelings of clients by

referring to them and allowing open discussion about them.

3.   Understanding responses allow the client to fully express his perception of

the problem without fear of judgement or contradiction.

Disadvantages of Understanding Style

1.   Continued reflecting back can be frustrating for the other person by sounding

'parrot-like'.

2.   An Understanding response does not in itself move discussion on to looking at

solutions to problems.

Conclusions

There is no 'best' counselling style. Each type of response has its advantages and

disadvantages and may be effective in some situations but ineffective in others. A

good counsellor will have the ability to use the whole repertoire of responses and

the sensitivity to be able to use them appropriately in a given situation.

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