The Foundations of Executive Coaching: A Reflection on Africa’s First Executive Coaching Convention
The rise of the pandemic in 2020 caused companies worldwide to undergo massive changes. The most agile companies relied on a work culture built around purpose, innovation, and employee empowerment to navigate the unprecedented volatile and ambiguous market conditions. Achieving agility, however, is a complex process that involves letting go of bureaucratic mindsets, systems and processes — and it begins with the leadership team’s transformation. This is where the power of coaching comes into play.
Recently, the Africa Executive Coaching Council (AECC) was founded to build a coaching ecosystem that promotes best practice and connects businesses with a certified coaches’ network across the continent. It hosted the first session of its inaugural Convention early in March 2021. Member of The Room Diana Mulili, an Executive Coach and Economic Development Executive, shares her insights from the first day of this pioneering conference.
Over 200 participants logged in from all corners of the continent and globe for Africa’s first Executive Coaching Convention. From the buzz in the chat room, we were all eager to hear how Executive Coaching is growing as a practice and transforming organisations in Africa. Dr. Martin Oduor-Otieno welcomed everyone, highlighting the relevance of the convention, especially in light of the pandemic and the effects it has had on individuals and organisations alike. Over the next 4 hours participants interacted and engaged in sessions that unpacked ‘Executive Coaching’ and how the practice has been used to build resilient, agile leaders in organisations like the African Leadership Group and Safaricom Plc.
To be agile you have to be humble and let go of control.
Kicking it off was our first keynote speaker, Fred Swaniker, Founder of the African Leadership Group and The Room. Fred took us through the Group’s growth journey towards its moonshot goal of transforming Africa by developing 3 million African leaders by 2035 using the 10–20–70 approach. The Group’s leadership learning experience is modelled on 70% challenging experiences and assignments, 20% developmental relationships and 10% coursework and training. Coaching falls under the developmental relationships that transform leaders. He then elaborated on the leadership challenges he and his organisation have experienced through its growth milestones and how coaching has been an effective tool in dealing with change and crisis management within and outside of the organisation. Fred mentioned how the African Leadership Group has taken on a data-driven approach to creating and embedding a coaching culture to ensure they capture its full value of building an agile leadership team. We got to learn that coaching has been instrumental in Fred’s own leadership journey, helping him overcome challenges that limited his full impact. He left us inspired to become better leaders by growing our sense of self-awareness.
Fred’s session was a great segue to a discussion on The State of Play in African Coaching with Professor Jonathan Passmore, a Professor of Coaching and Behavioural Change at Henley Business School who also leads the Henley Centre for Coaching. Jonathan has an impressive profile as a chartered psychologist with five degrees, including an MBA and a doctorate in occupational psychology. He sparked our curiosity as he took us through an exploration of how coaching began, its evolution as a practice and relative newness in Africa. Prof. Passmore shared with us his model of coaching development, and drew on a series of research studies examining coaching practices across Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Drawing from his wider work on trends in the United States and Europe, he suggested key steps for the development of African Coaching, while also exploring issues about the need to recognise and celebrate diversity as coaching becomes a global practice. In the end, Prof. Passmore left us pondering, “How can we build a unique coaching model that draws on and blends with our African-held values and ethos?”
Up next was a panel discussion that brought Prof. Passmore’s session home as we heard how a coaching culture has been built in one of Africa’s largest Telecom corporations, Safaricom Plc. The panel was moderated by Madeleine Dunford, Founder and MD of Career Connections, and included senior leaders from Safaricom: Paul Kasimu, its Chief Human Resources Officer; Mary Mutonga, the Senior Talent Manager; and Jimmy Masinde Walusala, the Customer Obsession Program Lead. It was eye-opening to learn of Safaricom’s leadership transformation journey and the challenges and successes encountered as coaching was put at the centre of leadership practices. We absorbed details of not only the formal training that took place, but also the mental paradigm shift that had to happen for many of their leaders as they graduated from a command-and-control leadership style. The panel shared anecdotes of leaders who initially found it difficult to “listen and ask open questions” but gradually practised and then adopted the practice. We were left impressed by the growing staff engagement rates monitored consistently as the organisation created a coaching culture, and got to learn from Paul Kasimu that “to be agile you have to be humble and let go of control.”
Resilience is about adapting to a new situation and thriving in it.
The cherry on the cake was our second keynote speaker of the day, Dr. Carole Pemberton, an Executive Coach, researcher and author who spoke to us about resilient leadership. There could never have been a better time to delve into that than now, in the middle of this pandemic. In 2020, ‘resilience’ became a buzzword associated with the demands that COVID was making on our working and personal lives. Yet, resilience is an attribute we need to have at all times, now and in the future. Dr. Pemberton took us through a fascinating, interactive deep-dive of what resilience is. By responding to mini-surveys, we gained an appreciation of the extensive pressures that many of us had been under lately. She provided evidence from leaders who have led through crises and broke down how they stayed resourceful through the challenging times. Most importantly, we left the session with frameworks that we can now take back to our organisations that challenge us to increase our own resilience by committing to new behaviour(s). The key lesson was that resilience is about adaptability; it’s not about bouncing back to who or where we were before the crisis, but more about adapting to our new situation and thriving in it. There could not have been a better way to end the day.
It was clear that the conversations left participants invigorated and looking forward to the next Convention day, which will feature another round of exciting keynote and panel speakers who will delve deeper into how we can build agile, inclusive teams and businesses that thrive in the new normal and beyond.
The Africa Executive Coaching Convention features an exciting line-up of global leaders as well as coaches and experts in various fields. The next sessions take place on 24th March and 14th April, with registrations still open. Register here.
