Enhanced Executive Coaching Improves Leadership Skills for Civilian Senior Leaders
CHALLENGE
A Branch of the Armed Forces wanted to upgrade their existing leadership development program designed to meet the unique needs of their Senior Executive Service (SES) team. The SES is a group of civilian senior executives that serve as the link between top presidential appointees and the Department of Defense (DoD) civilian workforce.
The Executive Management Program Office (EMPO), within this Branch of the Armed Forces, manages the training, assessment, and leadership development for the executives. They offer Executive Coaching to give leaders feedback, guidance, and support outside of the traditional classroom setting. This is offered to both SES members and emerging leaders who are on the path to joining the SES. The EMPO needed a partner to help evolve the new leadership development program and provide access to new executive coaches.
SOLUTION
Cynuria Consulting’s in-house experts provide human-centered learning and talent development solutions. We were chosen to work with the EMPO to modernize the leadership development program by providing executive coaches for their SES leaders. We assessed the situation and saw an opportunity to not only provide first-class executive coaches who are able to work effectively with the upper echelon of leaders but to also improve efficiency, saving the EMPO’s time by enhancing the reporting and project management processes in place.
1. Selecting the Best Coaches
We quickly assembled 13 International Coach Federation (ICF) certified executive coaches, all with 20+ years of experience working as executives in civilian and defense agencies. Their backgrounds enabled them to truly understand the context of the coachee’s experiences and to provide specialized advice.
In addition to the ICF certification, the coaches had at least one more industry-recognized certification in professional coaching. This included the Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC) certificate and the Executive Certificate in Leadership Coaching from Georgetown University.
These coaches were available to provide SES members with 12+ hours of individual support, with an option to extend for a second engagement. They were also available to carry out team coaching sessions with groups of up to 10 civilian and military leaders.
2. Creating Enhanced Project Management and Simplified Reporting
The EMPO and SES executives work in a fast-paced environment and have limited time at their disposal. They required an efficient, responsive reporting system to track coaching requests and progress. We, therefore, established a set of standard operating procedures and project management tools to enable the EMPO to:
Track incoming coaching requests
Match coaches and coachees
Monitor coachee engagement hours
Provide live reporting data
The new processes increased visibility, supported matching between coaches and coachees, and also allowed more flexibility in scheduling sessions.
3. Coach and Coachee Matching
We quickly discovered that the SES executives had limited time to spend selecting their own coaches. To overcome this obstacle, we took ownership of identifying the best potential matches by analyzing the coach and coachee’s biographies. We took into account the SES leader’s:
Functional focus
Rank in the organization
Race and gender
Special requests
Based on this information, we then presented the SES executive with two coach biographies to choose from. They could then attend an introductory meeting at no cost to the EMPO. If the SES executive was unavailable, we made the selection for them.
After the match was made, we ensured ongoing success by asking the coaches to fill in a self-assessment after each executive coaching session. This enabled them to log their hours and rate the success of the session.
RESULTS
We have now become a trusted vendor for the EMPO moving forward and making improvements with minimal direction. Our executive coaches support some of the highest-ranking civilian executives in the organization, enabling them to improve their competency, enhance their skills, and ultimately, become better leaders. Our executive coaches have helped their SES coachees to overcome challenges across:
Diversity, equity, and inclusion
Change in administration
Effective decision making
Career development
Our effective matching process has resulted in 96% renewed engagements, enabling our executive coaches to provide over 250 hours of coaching support for approximately 30 civilian Senior Executives and over 24 hours of Team Coaching in FY20.
Our project management system is used for responsive and efficient matching, tracking, and reporting, which streamlines the coaching process and saves the EMPO and the executive’s time.
