By Caroline Egan
It’s well known that Executive Coaching achieves a range of positive results such as improved productivity, engagement, well-being, and organisational effectiveness, and this is backed up by a substantial body of research evidence (deHaan, 2021). If you’re a decision maker deciding whether to invest in it for your business though, you may want to understand more about why and how it works. Although skilled coaching is designed to raise self-awareness, challenge client’s assumptions and beliefs, and elicit new insights about self and others, it can also lead to emotional and psychological development and greater flexibility at work.
Knowing ourselves
The renowned personality psychologist, Robert Hogan suggests that “Who we are is how we lead”. He describes the foundations of both personality and leadership as ‘Managing Ourselves’ (being conscious of our ‘identity’) and ‘Managing our Relationships with Others’ (managing our ‘reputation’). Personality is not the only factor which impacts leadership of course, but some aspects of personality have been shown to have a small to moderate impact on performance at work, with work context forming the other major factor.
Knowing ourselves, our identity, means who we are, what we value, and what are the principles by which we live our lives. By knowing this, we can then align our behavior with our core character and beliefs, achieving ‘self-concept clarity’. This clarity enables us to be conscious and intentional about the behaviour we choose to display at work, and in our relationships with colleagues.
While it’s well recognised that ‘adaptability’ as an aspect of Emotional Intelligence (Treglown and Furnham, 2023) is important to thriving in the workplace, and is associated with achieving higher managerial levels at work, the concept of ‘psychological flexibility’ is less well known, and skilled coaching can play a key part in developing this. As we all know, leadership can be a lonely and stressful place to be, affecting the psychological wellbeing of its ‘inhabitants’, so interventions such as coaching (Ebner et al., 2018) which address how individuals perceive and react to stress, can reduce role stress, and increase coping mechanisms, leading to greater leader effectiveness, better wellbeing in leaders and followers, and ultimately, organisational performance.
What is ACT?
Just as coaches often use tools and techniques derived from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Gestalt Therapy and coaching, mindfulness, and resilience practice when working with clients, the principles of ‘ACT’ – Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (a type of behaviour therapy which has evolved from CBT) are also starting to make an impact in coaching. Like CBT, ACT focuses on altering the problematic context in which we experience thoughts and feelings. Although ACT is better known as a model used in mental health interventions, it is also a model for behavioural effectiveness at work.
Psychological rigidity
From the perspective of ACT, psychological health is largely determined by how our thoughts interact with our current situation or environment, and how these thoughts help or hinder our ability to pursue our long-term values and goals. We can easily get caught up with our thoughts and attempt to avoid uncomfortable psychological experiences (e.g. performance managing our staff) however this avoidance or suppression only increases the impact and influence of emotions and thoughts on our actions, even when they are proving unhelpful (Hayes et al., 2001). As a result, suppressing and avoiding thoughts and feelings both enhances psychological distress (e.g., Wenzlaff & Wegner, 2000), and interferes with effective behaviour by minimizing our ability to recognise and take advantage of the opportunities a situation affords to achieve our values-driven goals (Hayes, Luoma, et al. 2006). This experiential avoidance represents ‘psychological rigidity’.
Psychological flexibility
Psychological flexibility on the other hand, is defined as the ability to fully contact the present moment, to recognise the thoughts and feelings it contains without being defensive to them and, depending upon the situation, the ability to persist in or change our behaviour in the pursuit of values and values-based goals (Hayes, Luoma, et al., 2006). Research has consistently shown that workers with higher levels of psychological flexibility have a greater perception of job control and respond better to that control as well as opportunities in the work environment.
Outcomes
There is now a convincing and consistent body of evidence demonstrating that when using the skills of psychological flexibility in the pursuit of values-directed goals, people experience higher levels of motivation, task-focus, wellbeing and performance at work. ACT has also shown potential for improving work performance indicators such as innovation potential, and rates of employee absence due to illness, as well as producing significant improvements in employees’ general mental health.
To find out more about how Executive Coaching could help you or your organisation, please get in touch.
Caroline Egan is an Executive Coach and Associate of C4C. She is an ABP-Certified Business Psychologist, has a PG Diploma in Career Development and Management, and practised as a lawyer for 15 years before her own career transition.