Leadership and Communication Improvement via Developmental Coaching
Teachers are generally with their students for over six hours a day, providing guidance, support, feedback, and acting as role models. As a result, they have a large amount of influence over students, making it important for every teacher to feel good about themselves, their goals, well-being, and even their leadership styles. However, teachers are faced with many challenges that may disrupt their ability to do so. This includes lack of time to focus on their own goals and well-being, and increased stress and anxiety, from a lack of funding and pressure from the education system or parents. Developmental Coaching (also can be referred to as Professional Personal Life and Wellness Coaching -PPC) may be a viable solution to improve the lack of time for self care, as research has shown that coaching may be an effective way to improve goal attainment, leadership, and well-being in the school system.
The researchers of this study believed that coaching which focuses on leadership and personal and professional development would not only improve educators’ leadership styles, but also their work experience. This study tested the effects of “developmental” coaching on “goal attainment, mental health, workplace well-being, resilience, and the impact of coaching on leadership styles” (p. 151). Working with 44 high school teachers attending 10 coaching sessions over a 20 week period, coaches gave participants feedback on their original leadership styles while they worked on improving it throughout the sessions. Studies have shown that receiving feedback on original leadership styles can raise awareness for future development and further change. Prior to the sessions itself, participants had to identify self-leadership goals that related to being a teacher, as well as personal goals. Setting and working on these goals has been shown to foster new and healthier behaviors, as well as improve well-being and self-efficacy (p. 154)
Experimenters also focused on goal attainment, particularly centering it around understanding the “relationship between their thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and the environment when achieving goals” (p. 155). The results revealed that subjects that participated in coaching had an increase of workplace and personal goal attainment, lower stress levels, and had an increase of positive well-being in the workplace Their leadership styles also had increased in “achievement and humanistic-encouraging styles” (p. 161), rather than more defensive styles. Achievement and humanistic-encouraging leadership styles create a more self-actualizing (realized potential) learning environment. This suggests that coaching could be beneficial for educators, as it improved their leadership and even their communication styles.
Grant and colleagues had also found in their 2009 study, that healthcare managers being coached in a public health setting “experience increased personal confidence, job satisfaction, and well-being as well as being better equipped to deal with change and workplace stressors'' (Grant et al., 2009, p. 154). Furthermore, coaching was shown to improve the ability to control your own behavior, self regulation and well-being, and being able to become a role model for others around them.
All in all, educators who are given the time and opportunity to receive coaching over 20 weeks showed drastic improvements. As their mental health improved, they were more satisfied with their job, their peers, and their relationships with their students. Their mental health improvement was partly due to being in a supportive, goal focused environment which helped develop their self-regulation, goal attainment and leadership abilities. In addition, teachers who experienced the coaching approach treated their students with the same value and honor that they received thus their leadership style shifted from more defensive leadership to humanistic and encouraging leadership styles. This in turn made students and educators enjoy coming to school more, as well as making their job more satisfying.
The Empowerment Coaches from the nonprofit, i.b.mee. have been coaching educators in schools for over a decade. From their experiences, they have found similar outcomes as these studies. Educators who had the experience of a credentialed Life and Well-being coach, especially one trained in trauma science and thriving leadership, increased their job satisfaction, their ability to communicate with clarity and connection even when they are emotionally triggered or students are in conflict.
