130 50 TOPEXECUTIVECOACHES

source of unconditional love. Where else could you expect to find the wisdom
and openness to lead or coach another person through growth and change?

Paul Hersey

Coaching Is the Manager’s Job

T

wenty years ago, if you’d asked managers to describe their most critical
tasks and responsibilities, coaching would have made it to nearly every-
one’s top-five list. Today, few include it among their priorities. How did this
shif t happen? It took place almost unnoticed, I believe, as managers became
transitory in their careers and switched organizations more freely. At some
point, the sense of obligation managers felt for investing in people long-term
seemed to fall away. In a sense, our work in the leadership development field
is dedicated to rebuilding coaching capacity in the line by putting that obli-
gation back onto the manager ’s plate.
Simply put, we consider leadership to be the process of diagnosing the in-
dividual or group in terms of their readiness to perform; and providing them
with the direction, guidance, or supportive behavior necessary to enable
them to take the ball and run with it. As might be expected, this takes place
in many different ways in an organization. All of us are responsible for
coaching those who report directly to us. There are also many occasions in
which we help others internally, as happens, for example, when we are part
ofa team. In working with the people who report to us, we coach down with
personal and positional power. When we are members of a group or team, we

Dr. Paul Hersey is founder and CEO of the Center for

Leadership Studies. He is author of the popular book,

The Situational Leader, and the textbook model for

situational leadership, Management of Organizational

Behavior.He is reachable by phone at (800) 330-2840 or

via the Internet at http://www.situational.com.