What is an Adequate Knowledge Base for Executive Coaching?

J Rothaizer, S Hill International Journal of Coaching in Organizations 2010

The authors of this article are organizational consultants. Rothaizer and Hill work as organizational effectiveness consultants, leadership development specialists and executive coaches. They also conduct organizational assessments and customize interventions such as team-building and training, depending upon the needs of their client organizations. The foundation of all their work is exactly the same, whether working with large-scale organizational change or one-on-one with an executive client. In this article, Rothaizer and Hill convey their first-hand observations of the harm that can be caused when practitioners let their perspectives be limited to the level of intervention, e.g., doing executive coaching and not paying attention to what they know as organizational consultants, e.g., the power of the organizational culture. In response to these observations, the authors offer a living systems perspective on working with organizations, as well as describing ways in which they engage their clients through the Clear Impact approach to executive coaching in the processes of contextual thinking, leadership versatility, developmental thinking, and personal awareness.