Coaching expatriate managers for success: Adding value beyond training and mentoring

Abstract

This paper explores the potential of evidence-based executive coaching as an intervention for facilitating expatriate success. One-to-one professional coaching is proposed as a powerful supplement to two interventions that have traditionally been used to assist expatriate managers – training and mentoring. Coaching is likely to be effective with expatriate managers because, like the expatriate experience itself, it is a connected process that impacts interactively across the individual’s affective, behavioural and cognitive domains. Coaches can work with individuals to deal with their specific contexts, taking into account the complexity of the circumstances. It can also assist managers to take full advantage of training and mentoring programs. Evidence-based coaching informed by cross-cultural research and experience has the potential to improve work performance and the personal satisfaction of the expatriate manager. Its effectiveness would seem to be currently dependent, however, on the availability and deployment of suitably qualified and experienced coaches.