Using Assessments in Executive Coaching

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

Anaïs Nin

Despite a lack of sound longitudinal research studies showing a clear return on investment, executive coaching continues to increase in popularity.  Most coaches have their favorite assessments they tend to pull out of their “toolkit” when appropriate for most of their coaching engagements.

A recent study on coaching impact by Coach Source that included 68 companies and 152 coaches revealed that most coaches have the greatest influence on the type of assessments they utilize in the coaching engagement.  Results of the study suggested that interviews were still the most popular type of assessment used by coaches and organizations supporting coaching followed by 360-degree feedback, personality/style tools and emotional intelligence measures.

Internal and external coaches should attempt to strategically match the type of assessment they are using with the unique presenting issues and desired outcomes with the talent they are working with.  Assessments used in coaching of talent can be conceptualized as being in four distinct areas—each are more strongly associated with specific emotional and behavioral outcomes.  These four assessment domains can serve as a useful guide to coaches trying to determine the most appropriate tool to use in their engagement:

1.  Abilities/Skills:  These assessments focus on providing feedback to talent on critical skill, competencies and abilities (e.g., cognitive abilities).  These assessments have been commonly used in assessment centers because they emphasize the demonstration of competence and performance in specific skill and ability areas.  Measures of skills/abilities have the strongest predictive validity with future performance.  Examples include simulations, cognitive ability tests, performance role plays, and competency based 360-degree feedback instruments.

When the goal of coaching is to enhance specific skills or performance, assessments measuring specific abilities can be very useful to help talent increase awareness and facilitate behavior change.  When leaders need to better understand how their  behavior impacts others, there are no better types of assessments than those comparing self and other perceptions in the form of multi-rater feedback measures.

2. Personality/Style:  In general, personality measures are only modest predictors of future performance across all job levels.  The two “universal predictors” of personality that are most predictive of future performance are conscientiousness and emotional stability (two of the “Big Five” factors).  Personality and style tools have been favorites of coaches for many years—each of us probably have a few favorite assessments that we get used to using and pull out of our coaching and consulting “toolkit.”

A large body of research now exists utilizing the five factor personality model (FFM) as a predictor of diverse work outcomes, including job performance. In recent meta-analytic studies, Conscientiousness shows the most consistent and robust associations with performance across all jobs and occupational settings. Emotional Stability has also consistently been found to be significantly correlated with overall performance and retention of talent across many, if not all jobs. These two FFM constructs can be considered as “universal” or generalizable predictors given their significant association with such a large number of jobs in diverse settings.

The other three Big Five factors (Extraversion, Agreeableness and Openness to Experience) have been found to be almost as predictive as Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability for select occupations and performance outcomes. These three factors are considered as “contingent predictors” depending on the exact requirements of the job in question. Hogan and Holland (2003) demonstrated that when interacting and working collaboratively with others is required for successful job performance, Agreeableness was a significant predictor. When job performance depended on leading, influencing and getting ahead of others (e.g., sales and managerial positions), Extraversion was a significant predictor. Research by Barrick et al. (2001) and George & Zhou (2001) has demonstrated that Openness to Experience emerges as an important predictor of performance in positions that require creative and artistic tasks and activities.

“Style” based tools are often used to assess specific coaching areas of concern including decision making, learning, leadership, conflict and communication style.  These are often the popular “organizational marriage counseling” tools used so frequently to complement other coaching processes like interviews.

3. Interests/Values: Although not intuitive, interests are actually poor predictors of future performance.  However, they are strongly correlated with job satisfaction, engagement and retention.  As a result,  they are important to measure in coaching engagements.  Making sure that talent’s values are aligned with those of the organization is critical to ensure that talent remain challenged and excited to stay with the organization.  There are a number of approaches to measuring interests and values including card sorts, interest inventories and other career assessments beyond interviews.

4. Health/Well-Being: Research by Envisia Learning has found that 40% to 60% of all talent report very high levels of stress caused by both work and home pressures and challenges. In most coaching engagements of mine I too often hear talent share perceptions of their heavy workload, work/family balance challenges and work stressors.

Consultation regarding stress, health and lifestyle behaviors has typically been seen as the domain of physicians, psychologists and other health professionals—not the arena for coaches.  It can be argued that helping employees deal more effectively with work and life balance, coping with stress, finding one’s legacy in life and facilitating physical and psychological well-being can be a major focus across executive, life, career or health coaching.  Increasingly, the use of assessments measuring resilience, work/life balance, health risk and job burnout are becoming more widely used in coaching engagements.

Conclusion

Assessing and coaching talent for development can involve a wide variety of approaches and tools—each with differential predictors of future success and performance. Those being asked to develop talent should carefully consider what outcomes they are trying to achieve and select the assessment(s) that best match their goals.

Developing, engaging, relating and balancing are the foundations of high performance of individuals, teams and organizations.  Using the proper assessment to maximize each of these four areas can result in increased bottom line results for the organization as well as insight and professional development for the talent involved in any coaching intervention.

Believe it or not I just found an old high school interest inventory (Kuder Interest Inventory) and it suggests I should have been maximinally satisfied in psychology, medicine and counseling vocations….Be well…
[tags]emotional intelligence, leadership, talent management, born versus made, executive coaching, personality, happiness, heritability, leadership effectiveness, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack[/tags]

Ken Nowack

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)