Shadow Coaching Gives Executives an Up-Close Look at Themselves (Part I)

Donna Karlin is a "shadow" or "observational" coach,

an executive coach who stays with clients all day for a week, giving them feedback at the end of each work day about what she saw them do.

During the course of the week Donna carefully notes what her clients do in meetings, including details like body language, tone of voice, and co-workers' reactions, as well as how clients handle their schedules, paperwork, mail, email, telephone calls, and breaks.

During daily feedback sessions Donna presents what she saw with emphasis on differences between what clients said about how they want to operate and what they actually did. In conjunction with feedback she helps her clients put the new--and, sometimes, seismically altering--perspectives about themselves to immediate use. Typically she helps them come up with ways to improve how they interact with others, how they manage their time, and the fit between their approach to work and their ultimate goals. Donna also offers up options learned during her years of experience working with leaders and executives to improve their effectiveness.

Shadow coaching is the only way that leaders can get such detailed information about their personal styles. It also persistently improves their self-awareness and ability to recognize and adjust their own behavior.

This change mechanism is effective because people choose what they want to change and put changes into practice immediately. To make the changes last, Donna schedules follow-up sessions weeks ahead of time. Knowing that they will be talking to her later encourages her clients to stay focused even when Donna is not observing them directly.

Shadow coaching operates as feedback on a number of levels. First, most of us aren't aware of what we do most of the time because we act out of habit and react to whatever comes up, even though we might like to exercise more precise control. A shadow reports what a client actually does, which is surprisingly often an eye-opener. The shadowing experience gives us an opportunity to exercise control rather than relying on old habits and reactive behaviors. Second, shadowed executives start to become more mindful of what they are doing on an ongoing basis, and they become more aggressive about noticing and reworking what they do on an ongoing basis.

Overview

Home Page

Detailed Description of Topics

Topics

Leadership
and Teams

Customer Relationships
and Marketing

Conflict Resolution and Negotiation

Listening Strategy and Skills

Resources

Listening Books

About Us

Contributors

Editorial

Contact Us

Leadership
and Teams

In this topic:

• Leadership Models and Listening Skills
  
• Primal Leadership and the Role of Listening in Emotional Intelligence, Part I
  
• Primal Leadership and the Role of Listening in Emotional Intelligence, Part II
  
• The Role of Listening in Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
  
• Peter Drucker's Effective Executive and Listening Skill
  
• Don't Hate Meetings, Make Them More Effective
  
• IDEO and The Art of Innovation: Brainstorming Techniques for Teams
  
• Practical Benefits of Better Listening for Leaders and Teams
  
• Shadow Coaching Gives Executives an Up-Close Look at Themselves (Part I) (this section)
  
• Shadow Coaching Gives Executives an Up-Close Look at Themselves (Part II)
  

businessLISTENING.com is produced by Wilson Strategies, consultants for leadership, customer relationship, and group process development.

Discussions of any author, business, business method or personal practice on this site are not endorsements, but are instead intended to provoke critical thinking and individual learning about the role of listening in business.

©2003-2005, all rights reserved. "businessLISTENING.com" is our trademark, all other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.