Give me a C-O-A-C-H!
At strategy sessions, he hunkered in the back of the room, a shadowy presence taking notes. In the chief executive's office, he sat in on every meeting, whispering into the boss's ear. But as he whipped up an atmosphere of intimidation and mistrust at the company, some staffers demanded a background check on the outsider they thought was having such a disastrous Svengali effect on their CEO.
That inquiry revealed that the boss's self-styled executive coach had no relevant training or experience for his trendy job. Having rubbed shoulders with CEOs, he "thought he might like a career change," says Howard Guttman, whose New Jersey company sets up coaching programs for Fortune 500 firms. "You've got somebody who thinks, `Hey, I'm good with people,' and they hang out their shingle," Guttman says. "They can do real damage."
Across the country, tales of wannabe corporate gurus dispensing psycho- babble or cultlike techniques have tarnished one of the nation's hottest growth industries. Over the past five years, coaching has mushroomed from a sideline on the motivational and consulting circuits to an expected perk in virtually every executive suite.
One reason for the explosion is a series of public testimonials on the conversions that a handful of high-profile coaches have wrought. David Pottruck, president and CEO of Charles Schwab & Co., credits former IBM executive Terry Pearce with transforming him from a sharp-elbowed despot into a sensitive consensus-builder. Pfizer Chairman Henry McKinnell was so enthusiastic about the feedback he got from Boston coach Dan Ciampa that he posted his own performance review on the company's internal Web site.
Some coaches, like Dartmouth Professor Vijay Govindarajan, specialize in strategizing, while others, like Ciampa, focus on merging clashing corporate cultures. But at a time when globalization makes the delegation of authority de rigueur and corporate governance scandals abound, both boards and shareholders are increasingly obsessed with leadership development. Most coaches are now called in to smooth a CEO's rough, my-way-or-the-highway edges that may be driving top talent to rivals. "Companies used to be able to function with autocratic bosses," says Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School. "We don't live in that world anymore."
Now, the very qualities that may have propelled hard-chargers up the corporate ladder often make them unfit to lead, including an unwillingness to tolerate dissent or a propensity for tantrums. "Screaming and throwing things can be fixed," says Marshall Goldsmith, an exuberant, Zen-spouting Ph.D. whose CEO makeovers were profiled in the New Yorker in 2002. "Any behavior can change--unless there's a defective gene." As Helen Ryane, whose clients include American Standard, puts it: "Coaching has become an acceptable form of therapy."
So great has the demand become that leading consulting and outplacement firms have begun to offer coaching. And some multinationals are setting up in-house coaching teams. Next month, pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, which already supplies senior executives with outside coaches, will begin training 55 human resource staffers to work one on one with middle management. "It's a way of building our leadership bench strength," says Janet Steinwedel, the company's director of leadership coaching.
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