Abstract
Leaders develop in the direction of their dreams, not in the direction of their deficits. Yet many coaching interactions intended to promote a leader’s development fail to leverage the benefits of the individual’s personal vision. Drawing on intentional change theory, this article postulates that coaching interactions that emphasize a leader’s personal vision (future aspirations and core identity) evoke a psychophysiological state characterized by positive emotions, cognitive openness, and optimal neurobiological functioning for complex goal pursuit. Vision-based coaching, via this psychophysiological state, generates a host of relational and motivational resources critical to the developmental process. These resources include: formation of a positive coaching relationship, expansion of the leader’s identity, increased vitality, activation of learning goals, and a promotion–orientation. Organizational outcomes as well as limitations to vision-based coaching are discussed.
Highlights
The practice of executive coaching has been widely adopted as a leader development strategy by organizations (Day, 2001; Feldman and Lankau, 2005; Bono et al, 2009)
Motivational: Vision and Regulation of Goal-Directed Behavior discovery of one’s ideal self in the context of a resonant coaching relationship energizes positive action, creating and executing an agenda for intentional development is an integral part of vision-based coaching (Boyatzis, 2008)
Vision-based coaching advocates for the clarification of one’s ideal self as a starting point for the coaching process and as an anchor for other discoveries involved in intentional change
Summary
The practice of executive coaching has been widely adopted as a leader development strategy by organizations (Day, 2001; Feldman and Lankau, 2005; Bono et al, 2009). Vision-based coaching is postulated to improve over traditional approaches by accelerating the formation of positive coaching relationships, facilitating leader identity expansion, increasing vitality or energy for change, activating learning-oriented goals, and fostering a promotionoriented self-regulatory stance in the person being coached. These motivational resources are proposed to contribute to long-term leader development and positive outcomes at the organizational level. Proposition 1: Vision-based coaching activates a PEA state characterized by positive affect, cognitive openness, and a physiological challenge response to a greater degree than coaching interventions that do not include an ideal self-component
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