PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

It is happening. Executive coaching is exploding. The hope expressed in the first edition of this book is being accomplished.

The Practice of Leadership Coaching is the name we have given to this second edition of Coaching for Leadership: How the World’s Greatest Coaches Help Leaders Learn. It builds on the success of the original work, acclaimed by many authorities as the definitive text on executive coaching. The original work, written as our subject was dawning, has to date inspired well in excess of twenty thousand English-speaking readers; it has since become available in a further four languages.

When Matthew C. Davis, senior editor at Pfeiffer, commissioned this new work, he most likely expected to receive lightly updated scripts culled to appeal to the important emerging audiences he had identified. We have surpassed this ambition. Readers of the first edition will not be surprised at the approach we have taken in producing this latest work. We remain committed to the research approach. So we went back to our authors and asked how they would like to present their ideas, now that our subject has moved on. Once again, their response was amazing.

The book you now hold is more like a separate volume than a second edition. It expounds a well-accepted leadership practice, not a rapidly emerging bright idea. This book contains fourteen brand-new chapters; another ten chapters have been significantly revised. We include new detailed case studies, which we know are highly valued by our readers. We are deeply grateful to all our authors for sharing our motivation, and to the leading companies who have been so generous in sharing their experiences.

Our audiences are expanding. This indicates an expansion of needs beyond a mere growth in numbers. We hope in this edition to address those emerging needs. We have expanded and updated our book to include two clearly important groups. The first is the rapidly growing number of executives who are reaching retirement and aspire to become executive coaches.

Within the next five years, it is likely that more than 30 percent of U.S. executives will be retiring.* In Canada, where the retirement rate of executives is nearly 40 percent, “executive failure” is estimated at a staggering 50 percent. In this context, the possibility of growing the skills of developing leaders makes an attractive corporate investment. Perhaps uniquely, executive coaching has the potential to satisfy this need to up-skill incumbent young leaders. The necessary supply of experienced leadership talent clearly exists, albeit in retirement. A fantastic opportunity has opened up to those leaders who are “officially” retired and are thinking about executive coaching as a “second career.” Our authors have much to say to them.

The second emerging audience consists of people in Human Resouce departments who are now addressing the challenge of introducing and managing coaching programs. We have included case studies to demonstrate what has worked in particular instances. We suggest that coaching is better seen as a change management program than a training activity. We hope that the collective views throughout this book give HR sponsors a sense for the coaching opportunity and an indication of the different approach that it requires.

Our book delivers the well-researched best practices of the world’s finest coaches to those entering and studying this exciting field. By “best practice” we do not mean that we asked our authors to research different approaches and then select a benchmark. As a matter of fact, we want to discourage our readers from simply copying something that worked for someone else somewhere else. We share with our audience—practitioners, leaders who are transitioning from line manager to executive coach, and HR sponsors—the distilled principles of best practice and an understanding of where and how to apply these principles.

We believe this book to be an invaluable contribution to the growing field of coaching, and we are sure you will find the authors’ insights, practices, and experiences useful as you navigate the global business environment. Coaching is the better way.

What to Expect from The Practice of Leadership Coaching

Our book begins by explaining and defining its subject, coaching, and then leads into the essential parts of the coaching process, the strategy of executive coaching as a change activity, and finally case studies and core applications—in other words, how executive coaching works in the real world. Of course, you may read the chapters in any order. Just pick a subject that you are interested in and find your author. Each article is valuable in its own right and can easily stand alone from the rest.

Our Hope

We hope you enjoy this new volume. We hope you will gain more understanding of coaching as it grows to meet with our changing times. We believe coaching can have an incredibly dramatic impact on leaders and organizations, and it is our sincere wish that you find within these pages a theory, method, and strategy to apply coaching within your own organization, or with the executives of organizations that you coach.

Marshall Goldsmith

Rancho Santa Fe, California

May 2005

Laurence S. Lyons

Reading, England

*DDI, Executive Resource White Paper, 2002.