Promoting Leaders’ Identities and Leadership in a Coaching Programme

Author(s):

Katja Vähäsantanen(presenting / submitting)Susanna Paloniemi Päivi Hökkä Anneli Eteläpelto Sanna Herranen

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

01. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations

Format:

Paper

Session Information

01 SES 01 B, The Quality of Professional Development

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-10

13:15-14:45

Room:

B-203

Chair:

Sara Bubb

Contribution

Today, given the various challenges, working as a leader is demanding work. Educational organisations, including universities, must effectively produce high-quality education and research, develop their operations and practices, be productive and respond to external accountability demands and societal needs. Simultaneously, individuals need to adopt new professional roles, cultivate their professional identities and cross the traditional boundaries of their work (Hökkä et al., 2010; Millward & Timperley, 2010). However, facing externally-imposed demands and chance suggestions regarding one’s work can threaten individuals’ well-being, satisfaction and commitment at work (Ballet & Kelchtermans, 2008; Day & Kington, 2008; Vähäsantanen & Eteläpelto, 2011). All in all, one fundamental question seems to be how educational organisations can create educational change while initiating individuals’ identity transformations and maintaining their well-being. This implies a need for leadership which focuses on people, relationships and learning at the individual, community and organisational levels (Hökkä & Vähäsantanen, 2013; Moos, 2009; Townsend & MacBeath, 2011), as opposed to strong, strategy-oriented management.

Enhancing sustainable and multilevel learning in organisations is a huge task. Leaders are often on the horns of a dilemma when they must bring about educational and organisational change and take account of the interests and concerns of their personnel. Thus, leaders need effective methods and tools to achieve this. Often, this also requires leaders’ own learning and development. Challenged by this, we designed a programme which aims to (i) support the development and cultivation of leaders’ identities and their well-being, (ii) train leaders to support the development of work communities, (iii) offer tools which support personnel’s learning at work, their role and identity work, and their empowerment and well-being, and (iv) increase the collaboration between different actors at different levels in the organisation. To reach these aims, during the coaching, the participants deal and work with themes, such as (i) personnel’s agency and identity at work, (ii) leaders’ identities, well-being and agency, (iii) enhancing the development of personnel, work communities and work organisations from the viewpoint of agency and (iv) practical leadership tools in leaders’ work.

The leaders’ coaching programme is part of a larger project which aims to investigate professional agency in education and health care organisations, and to create a programme which simultaneously supports the professional learning and identity work of subjects (leaders and personnel) and the transformation of work communities and organisations (Eteläpelto et al., 2012). In this study, our aim is to investigate the participants’ goals for the leaders’ coaching programme, and to portray the experienced meaningfulness of the programme for the leaders so far.

Method

A leaders’ coaching programme was implemented for 12 leaders, most of whom came from a university context, but some of whom came from a hospital context. In addition, four people participated in the programme as learners and researchers, as well as co-trainers. An experienced trainer was responsible for the planning and implementation of the programme. The programme included 12 workshops (a total of 72 hours) conducted over a one-year period. Various tools and methods (e.g. drama methods, sociometry, discussions, drawings and portfolios) were used. In this study, the research data comprise the following: (i) pre-interviews about work and leadership, and the participants’ expectations and goals related to the coaching, (ii) selected video-taped and written material produced from the coaching, (iii) the portfolios produced between the coaching workshops, and (iv) post-interviews about the contents of the coaching and their usefulness for leaders’ work. In the data analysis, multiple approaches are utilised, such as content analysis and discourse analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005; Potter & Wetherell, 1987).

Expected Outcomes

The findings show a need to support leaders’ identities and skills at work. Various goals emerged from the leaders’ daily work for the coaching programme. The goals were related to the following categories: (i) leaders’ identities and personas (including goals such as strengthening one’s leader-identity and developing tools to enhance one’s well-being and creativity), (ii) individual-centred leadership (encompassing goals such as increasing togetherness and pleasure in communities and finding tools to support their personnel’s well-being), and (iii) functional leadership (including goals such as learning to delegate and support professional agency in work communities, and finding the tools to describe the vision, motivate personnel to move in the same direction and to follow the process). Before they started the programme, the leaders also hoped that it would offer an arena, for example, for creating and deepening cooperation among the participants. The preliminary findings regarding the meaningfulness of the programme suggest that the programme created a platform for leaders’ development through the methods which enabled them to recognise their strengths and developmental challenges and further work with them. It also seems that the leaders, for example, discovered some new tools and lenses for working as leaders and for developing work practices.

References

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