Executive coaching in India: finding roots in a hard business environment

Companies today have transitioned from engaging coaches a knee-jerk reaction to a business crisis to hiring them for the development of leaders and executives at senior and mid-level

Executive coaching is still in nascent in India, though it debuted some 15 years back. But today its practice and relevance to businesses and leaders are on a sharp growth curve, given the great economic volatility and complex challenges within and outside companies staring at CEOs. Under enormous pressure from shareholders, banks, regulatory bodies and other stakeholders, India’s top executives are fast realising the need to have a wider, global mindset than they had in the past. 

In such a changing economic and corporate landscape, many leaders and managers often feel inadequate, lonely, confused and isolated, even as they are expected to exhibit total control of the difficult situations their companies are battling. As a result, India Inc's captains are losing authenticity as leaders, and have begun to increasingly look for a sounding board -- an external, confidential and trusted friend, philosopher and guide. Enter, the executive coach.

Says Mumbai-based pioneering executive coach Ashu Khanna, “I have seen executive and leadership coaching grow rapidly, especially over the last 8-9 years. As a pioneer coach in India, I have experienced a significant increase in the number of professional coaches, coaching certification programmes and associations.”

Adds Chennai-based coach Ravi Santhanam, “When I was working in the corporate sector, I was getting signals from younger managers that my conversations and advice have impacted them and their careers. So, executive coaching became a natural extension.”

Until a few years ago, it was largely the Indian subsidiaries of multinational companies that were hiring executive coaches. Today, the catchment area has expanded to include older managers in family business groups and the younger fast-track ones in aggressive private equity-backed start-ups and pressure-cooker consulting firms. They are coached around behavioural, business and leadership agenda. 

One of the biggest positive changes is that organisations have transitioned from engaging coaches for remedial purposes to hiring them for the development of leaders and executives at senior and mid-level. Coaching has opened doors to having reflective conversations and giving feedback with relative ease. The number of organisations that have external and internal coaches has increased. Companies have also become more discerning and have chemistry meetings before selecting a coach.

Industry estimates suggest a 60 per cent year-on-year growth in India the past few years, which could translate into a $60 million industry, compared with a $5 billion one in the US. Further, while this concept has been prevalent for over 30 to 35 years in the West, in India, executive coaching has been around for half that period. 

Defining executive coaching 

But what exactly is executive coaching? Marshall Goldsmith, perhaps the world’s most celebrated coach, says that 90 per cent of executive coaching deals with behavioural and leadership development. And this is at the mass end. At the top of the spectrum is strategic coaching, where he clubs Professor Vijay Govindarajan, Ram Charan and the late Professor C K Prahalad -- all high-profile global coaches who charge six-figure dollar fees for a day. Incidentally, all of them coach and are confidantes to the top Fortune 50 CEOs.   

An executive coach is a qualified professional who works with individuals (usually high potential employees) to help them gain self-awareness, clarify goals, achieve their development objectives, unlock their potential, and act as a sounding board. They are not classical consultants or therapists and usually refrain from giving advice or solving their client’s problems. Instead, they ask questions to help an executive clarify and solve their own problems. It is also a time-bound dialogue with a result-oriented objective in mind. Across the world, it is estimated that a majority of executive coaching assignments are sponsored by the company and to that extent, they contribute towards a broader organisational goal and vision, even though it is the individual who undergoes the coaching. 

Says Singapore-based D N Prasad, who transitioned from a senior managerial position in Google to become a coach, “I was an active guru and an internal coach across a few platforms at Google, and was in a happy space. And then, I was at a point of (self) reflection. By now, I was clear that coaching was not just a passion, but a calling. I knew I would be a full-time coach someday and I also knew, I had to sign up for a continuous journey of evolution and growth as a coach." 
 

Prasad says this quest took him to Ontological Coaching with Newfield Asia. "Ontological coaching focuses on changing the “observers” we are as individuals, and I experienced it first hand. I finally took a plunge into full-time coaching and leadership development and my journey as an entrepreneur, in July 2018,” he says. 

The Indian context 

In its early days in India, coaching was perceived as a stigma and often clubbed with counselling and therapy. Executives were then reluctant to be coached, as it was viewed negatively by peers and subordinates. This perception is now changing fast with coaching being seen in a positive light. Crucially, it is being sponsored by the CEOs and organisations to develop and motivate high-potential employees for their accelerated growth. 

Says Santhanam, “A few years back, if I was having lunch with my coachee in the company canteen, he would seldom introduce me as a coach to his colleagues. Today, he has no hesitation in doing so. The cultural shyness has been overcome.”

Senior HR professionals, psychologists, retired CEOs and other top managers are jumping into the lucrative arena of executive coaching. Some believe their long and successful industry experience as qualification enough. Fly-by-night experts are also not hard to find. Adds Prasad, “I have worked with leaders across industries and geographies in the past year. We have co-created, moved the needle, questioned assumptions, reflected and changed the way we observe and brought in very evident and sustainable shifts in personal and leadership behaviours. The leaders and the companies are willing to invest time, energy and top dollars for their developmental journey.” 

It is therefore imperative that companies and managers hire coaches who are certified from renowned global or Indian coaching associations that conduct 8-10-day certification courses followed by 60-100 hours of supervised executive coaching practice. Some of these are International Coaching Federation (ICF), Coaching Foundation of India (CFI), ICC and Franklin Covey. Some of the popular coaching models are the GROW Model of Coaching, NLP Coaching, Positive Psychology Coaching, Behavioural Coaching (Marshall Goldsmith Methodology), Ontological Coaching and Integral Coaching. The Coaching Foundation India (CFI) has a two-tier programme for CEO Coach and Internal Leadership Coach accreditation. With all of the above, the supply of trained coaches in India is steadily increasing. Says Ashu Khanna, “I use the self-discovery approach by applying the core competencies of International Coach Federation. By listening deeply to the client, I am able to ask incisive and thought-provoking questions to create awareness of their unique strengths as well as perceptions and paradoxes.”

Today, many clients understand the power and effectiveness of coaching and are seeking professionals to not only improve their business performance, but also to grow as human beings by taking leadership of their inner self. 

Current challenges

But the fragmented nature of the executive coaching industry in India poses many challenges both on the supply and the demand side. Organisations also report of shortage of CEO- and CXO-level coaches who have similar level of industry experience and practical business wisdom, as opposed to just theoretical coaching methodologies. 

At the same time, there is need for executive coaches to clearly understand the sponsor’s expectations. Poorly stated briefs lead to ineffective coaching outcomes. The HR function in many organisations tends to treat executive coaching as any other training intervention. There is, therefore, a need to educate them on the critical role executive coaching can play in strengthening the leadership pipeline and organisational strength. 

Another nagging issue is that a coach is often not seen as a long-term partner to development and growth. In order to deepen self-awareness and unleash potential, a coach needs at least a year. Often organisations expect coaches to deliver sustainable behaviour change in six months. Each individual is unique and each person’s pace of transformation is different. Hence, expecting individuals to demonstrate change in the same time span is an unreasonable demand.

The way forward

As executive coaching steadily gains momentum in India, companies need to identify specific domains such as sales coaching and supply chain coaching. Further, they should take necessary steps to create a culture of coaching by nurturing internal leaders and managers to become coaches. The segment will and should transition from behavioural and remedial to leadership development and proactive and potential development. With greater use of technology like videos and skype, coaching can also cut across geographies and time zones. In the years to come, coaching should embrace more and more mid-level managers instead of being largely confined to the senior and top management, as is the case today. Research and case studies on executive coaching are few and far between in India. This should be augmented. Finally, today a majority of the coaching techniques and methods are Western. There is a need to create Indian and Asian models in a more structured, organised and professional manner. When that happens, executive coaching will move into the next phase in the country.