Robert G. Hamlin

The emergent ‘coaching industry’: a wake-up call for HRD professionals

Recent years have seen the rapid growth of an emergent ‘coaching industry’ in many countries with some scholars calling for the development of a ‘coaching profession’ replete with its own clear identity, clear boundaries and unique body of knowledge. Yet, at the same time, coaching has also been conceived as a necessary area of expertise and skill set among contemporary HRD professionals. Therefore, this article reports the results of a comparative study of the different conceptualizations and definitions of ‘coaching’ and contemporary HRD as reported in the literature. Results suggest that the intended purposes and processes associated with both fields of practice are virtually the same. The challenge and dilemma posed by these results are described from both a coaching and HRD perspective, and are discussed in terms of seeing the findings of this comparative study as a wake-up call for HRD professionals.

Coaching at the heart of managerial effectiveness: A cross-cultural study of managerial behaviours

Abstract The concept of managers and managerial leaders assuming the developmental role of coaching has gained considerable attention in recent years as organizations seek to leverage learning by creating infrastructures that foster employee learning and development. However, despite the increasing focus on managerial coaching and the many contentions that coaching is an essential feature of really effective management, the literature remains predominantly practice-based and atheoretical. The present study attempts to address this lack of a sound and sufficient empirical base by presenting the results of a cross-cultural comparison of the empirical findings from several previous ‘managerial coaching effectiveness’ and ‘managerial and leadership effectiveness’ studies completed by the authors in their three respective countries. Its specific aim is to demonstrate empirically the extent to which being an effective coach is an essential feature of being an effective manager and/or managerial leader.

Managerial Coaching A Review of the Empirical Literature and Development of a Model to Guide Future Practice

The Problem While managerial coaching becomes increasingly popular in both scholarly and practical circles, the line managers who need to execute this coaching may be neither capable nor interested in the coaching process. Furthermore, while the research on coaching seems promising, little is known about how to test the individual and environmental appropriateness of a coaching intervention. The Solution This review will inform and support evidence-based human resource development (HRD) professionals tasked with developing managers’ coaching capability. It is designed to help line managers who wish to enhance their managerial coaching practice. The Stakeholders This literature review and model will benefit organizations, HRD professionals, and line managers to determine whether coaching is an appropriate learning intervention for their context and at that particular time. Furthermore, if it is deemed appropriate, this review and resulting framework may aid in determining how practitioners should approach coaching within their organizational setting.

An Evidence-Based Perspective on HRD

The problem and the solution. Historically, human resource development (HRD) has been a “fourth-order” consideration in strategic discussion within most organizations and is likely to continue to be so unless HRD professionals adopt new approaches to practice that have first-or second-order impact in helping to create high-performance organizations and sustainable success.The purpose of this article is to provoke thought and reflection on the recent emergence of “evidencebased” approaches to HRD practice by discussing their relevance to organizational leaders, managers, HRD practitioners, and other HR professionals concerned with bringing about effective and beneficial organizational change and development. How such approaches might become commonplace throughout the HRD business is also discussed and illustrated.

Behavioural criteria of perceived mentoring effectiveness: An empirical study of effective and ineffective mentor and mentee behaviour within formal mentoring relationships

Purpose – Most past research on formal mentoring has investigated its antecedents, outcomes and benefits with little attention given to what goes on inside the dyadic relationship. The purpose of this paper is to explore the types of mentor and mentee behaviours that are perceived as critical factors contributing to either a positive or negative mentoring experience for the mentee and the mentor.Design/methodology/approach – Concrete examples of “effective” and “ineffective” mentor and mentee behaviour were collected from the research participants using Flanagans Critical Incident Technique (CIT). The obtained CIT data were analyzed using forms of open and axial coding. Variants of content analysis were then used for conducting a series of subsequent comparative analyses.Findings – From a total of 187 coded critical incidents the study identified 11 positive and four negative behavioural criteria of mentoring effectiveness as perceived from the mentee perspective, and nine positive and three negative beh...

Toward Universalistic Models of Managerial Leader Effectiveness: A Comparative Study of Recent British and American Derived Models of Leadership

House and Aditya (1997) claim there is a compelling logic suggesting the ‘universality’ of managerial leader effectiveness but this represents theoretical speculation and remains to be developed theoretically and demonstrated empirically. Their view contrasts sharply with the ‘contingent’ views of many writers who perceive problems arising from the significant differences in organizational settings and cultures that affect the management and leadership environment, and who question the generalizability and transferability of US management and leadership research to non-US cultures. The present study sets out to contribute to this debate. The findings from a qualitative comparative analytic study of empirically derived criteria of managerial leader effectiveness resulting from several factor analytic studies carried out in Britain and America respectively are presented and discussed. The research has revealed a high degree of universality that lends strong support to those who believe in generic theories and ‘universalistic’ models of management and leadership.

Behavioural criteria of managerial and leadership effectiveness within Egyptian and British public sector hospitals: an empirical case study and multi-case/cross-nation comparative analysis

This paper reports the results of a study of managerial and leadership effectiveness carried out within an Egyptian public sector hospital in which concrete examples of ‘effective’ and ‘least effective/ineffective’ manager and managerial leader behaviour, as observed by superiors, peers and subordinates, were collected using the critical incident technique. These critical incidents were then content analyzed to identify a smaller number of discrete behavioural statements and criteria of effectiveness. The paper also reports the results of a subsequent comparative analysis of these Egyptian findings against equivalent behavioural criteria that emerged from studies in two different British NHS Trust hospitals. This latter multi-case/cross-nation study revealed high degrees of overlap, commonality, and relative generalization across all three organizations. The results lend strong empirical support to those who believe in ‘generic’ and ‘universalistic’ explanations of the nature of managerial and leadership effectiveness.

Generic Behavioural Criteria of Managerial Effectiveness: An Empirical and Comparative Case Study of UK Local Government.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a “partnership‐research” study of effective and ineffective managerial behaviour within the “local government” setting of the Wolverhampton City Council Social Care Department, and to describe how the research supports and challenges the organisations existing “leadership and management behavioural competency framework”. Additionally, it reveals and discusses the extent to which the results are consistent with equivalent and comparable findings from an equivalent study within a “central government” department.Design/methodology/approach – Concrete examples of effective and ineffective managerial behaviour were collected using the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) of Flanagan, and the obtained data were analysed using content and thematic analytic methods.Findings – The paper finds that from a total of 218 usable critical incidents 50 discrete behavioural items were identified, of which 25 were examples of “effective” and 25 of “ineffective...

Behavioural indicators of perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness within Romanian and British public sector hospitals

Purpose – This paper aims to report the results of a replication study of perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness within a Romanian public sector hospital, and to discuss the extent to which they are similar to and different from findings from equivalent studies carried out in two British NHS Trust hospitals.Design/methodology/approach – Concrete examples (critical incidents) of effective and ineffective managerial behaviour were collected using Flanagans critical incident technique (CIT). The critical incidents were content analyzed to identify a smaller number of behavioural statements (BSs). These were then compared and contrasted against two British BS data sets using realist qualitative analytic methods, and deductively coded and sorted into extant behavioural categories.Findings – A total of 57 BSs were identified of which 30 were examples of effective and 27 of least effective/ineffective managerial behaviour. The multi‐case/cross‐nation comparative analysis revealed high degrees of comm...

Deducing a taxonomy of perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness: a comparative study of effective and ineffective managerial behaviour across three EU countries

This qualitative multiple case derived etic study focuses on perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness. It explores what employees in various organizations, organizational sectors and culturally diverse nations perceive as effective and ineffective managerial behaviour. Empirical findings from six emic replication studies carried out previously within three European Union countries were subjected to cross-case, cross-sector, and cross-nation comparative analysis. High degrees of sameness and similarity were found. Further analysis led to the emergence of a behavioural taxonomy comprised of 10 positive (effective) and 9 negative (ineffective) behavioural criteria. We find that managers and non-managerial staff in British and Romanian public-sector hospitals, and in British and German private-sector companies, perceive effective and ineffective managerial behaviour in much the same way. Our findings challenge past literature which argues that managers need to adopt different managerial behaviours to be effective in different organizational sectors and countries.