Providing Feedback to Staff According to their Cognitive Development Stage - Coursework Example

Providing feedback to staff according to their cognitive development stage Name Institution Providing Feedback to Staff According to their Cognitive Development Stage (200) Executive coaching holds a significant promise in the transformation of leaders in today’s organization. Today, the need for executive coaching has never been this important. In a world where companies are facing increasing competition and have to contend with sheer volume of work, executive coaching has come to provide leaders with the necessary training to overcome such challenges (Phillips & Ashby, 1999). Even more, executive coaching has taken a new paradigm in many organizations. Previously seen as a tool for correcting problems facing executive leaders, today’s trajectory of executive leadership gears on equipping leaders with strategic skills giving them an edge on strategic matters. Indeed, executive coaching become a vital component of organizations willing to engage in proactive development of their staff. The stance necessitates the use of effective coaching strategies that are not only effective, but transcend challenges leaders face in the organization (Stern, 2008). This paper argues that cognitive development and big 5-personality theories offer plausible approaches of delivering coaching sessions to staff. During coaching sessions, coaches receive feedback from coaches, which help them realize their performance along with areas of weakness. Given the centrality of feedback in coaching, this paper proposes that effective coaching must focus on delivering feedback to staff or leaders receiving leadership development with emphasis on their cognitive development stage. Coaching feedback that aligns with the cognitive development stage of a leader offers a coach the opportunity to use an appropriate and personalized coaching package. A coaching with conceptual roots in cognitive development and big 5-personality theories has a profound impact on leadership development outcomes. The theories offer a robust framework and insight on the provision of feedback to staff that emphasizes on cognitive developmental stages. The two theories are a starting point in the rigorous understanding of a new approach to providing feedback to staff during coaching. The tenets of cognitive development theory and the big 5-personality theory holds the key in the delivery of effective feedback during coaching. Cognitive developmental theory (350) Cognitive development theory is one of the fundamental theories of development. The theory centers on the changing thinking patterns of children as they transition to adulthood. During the 20th century, many psychologist had intense interest in cognitive development, which motivated Jean Piaget to develop the cognitive development theory (Van, 2007). The cognitive development theory rests on some fundamental concepts Piaget developed to explain how children experience changes in thought and knowledge as they grow. These concepts are scheme, assimilation, accommodation, organization, and adaptation. More important, the essential attribute of this theory is the understanding increased cognitive functions enhance understanding among individuals. A scheme offers individuals a way of understanding their environment. This is because a scheme offers a description of thought or behavior a child ingrain in his or her mind (Nevid, 2009). A child could have a scheme describing bird as all animals having feathers, which helps describe the external environment around the child. The concept of assimilation closely related that of scheme. Using the example above, a child would call anything with feathers a bird because it simply fits into the existing scheme describing birds. Fitting a new object into an existing scheme continues until the child develops a new scheme (Piaget, 2001). However, a child who notices a difference between two objects with similar characteristics (say wings), the child could modify existing schema to accommodate the variation between the two objects. Further, a child develops organization where he or she links schemes to enable identification of differences or similarities between two or more objects (Nevid, 2009). The concept of adaptation explains the interrelatedness of assimilation and organization in children. The four stages of cognitive development are significant component of the cognitive development theory. The stages occur in a sequence and affects how children view others, make meaning, and interact with the world around them (Nevid, 2009). The first stage is the sensorimotor phase that occurs between 0 and 2 years of life. In this stage, a child develops an internal representation of actions after evolving through simple reflexes. During the phase, children learn to experiment their actions in their external environment. Object permanence also develops in this phase allowing children to understand that an object continues to exist even when it is not in view. The preoperational period is the second phase of cognitive development. In this phase, between 2 and 7 years, a child acquires symbolic functions and engage in symbolic play (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2010). The child also develops ego, which makes one think or perceive others through their lens. Another phase is the concrete operation stage occurs between 7 and 11 years. A child in this stage develops conservation skills and apply mental operations to events, and objects. A child also develops concentration and subjective morality understanding the reason behind an action. In the last stage, after 11 years and above, a child develops deductive reasoning and can formulate hypotheses. Most important, children develop abstract thinking (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2010). The stages give children chances to make meaning out of their environment either through problem solving or understanding the environment. Big 5-personality theory In recent decades, research has focused on the importance of personality traits on performance and job motivation. Indeed, personality remain a critical component that differentiates people in the work place. The big five model describes five dimension of personality, which explains the variation between different individuals (Vigoda-Gadot, & Drory, 2006). The value of the big five taxonomy has been an intriguing topic to some scholars. Some researchers (Witt et al, 2002) found that the five personality dimensions interact with organizational elements to influence job outcomes. The five dimension of the big five traits are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience. Each of these domains describe the dominant features, which characterize personalities bearing the trait. The extraversion dimension describes the comfort of an individual with relations. While extraverts tend to be sociable and gregarious, introverts tend to be reserved and quiet. In the agreeableness dimension, individuals have the tendency to defer with others. Agreeable people are those who cooperate with other people, while those with little of this trait lack trust and are always antagonistic. Conscientiousness is a dimension concerned with reliability. Individuals with high scores of this trait tend to be reliable and persistent. On the other hand, those with low scores of this trait are easily distracted and unreliable. The other dimension is the emotional stability. This dimension trait explains individuals’ ability to withstand stress (John, Robins & Pervin, 2008). Individuals with positive conscientiousness can withstand stress better than those without. More often than not, people with negative scores feel insecure, anxious, and depressed. The last dimension in the big five theory is openness to experience. In this dimension, individuals with high levels of openness wield curiosity and artistic sensitiveness. However, individuals with low scores of openness find comfort in familiar things and traditional aspect of an organization. This is an interesting domain because it has profound impact of performance. This trait puts imaginative and creative individuals on one side, while those who like conforming to convention on the other side (Nevid, 2009). People with high scores of openness to experience often accept new ideas and are intelligent to new changes. Unlike their counterparts who do not invite change, they tend to be imaginative. The usefulness of this trait cannot be undermined in the study of organization aspect such as performance and leadership (Lussier & Achua, 2010). This is because this trait is an important predictor of performance. More important, this trait affects leadership development and growth individuals grow within an organization. Implication of the theories in Executive Coaching Executive coaching plays a significant role in allowing leaders improve their leadership outcomes and advance their relationship with their juniors. Indeed, these benefits have placed executive coaching as a vital component of business development at a time when leadership and performance are premium factors affecting business performance. Even with the importance of executive coaching, the coach does not operate in isolation, but under the influence of various forces. Development theories such as big five-personality trait and the cognitive development theory are some of the forces with overarching influence on the outcomes of coaching. This is because various tenets of these theories affect the process of coach transforming leaders enabling the realization of professional and organizational objectives. The two theories do have the most significant influence in the provision of feedback during coaching. With feedback playing a pivotal role in shaping executive coaching (Mattone, 2013), there are several implications of the theories to executive coaching. Coaching is an intricate process that requires a variety of ingredients. During the process of coaching, a coach cannot ignore the role and impact of cognitive understanding on the process of providing feedback. During coaching, the coach provides the coachee with constructive feedback that shapes his or her performance. When providing feedback, tailoring the feedback process with cognitive stage of a coachee gives, a promise of unique learning that transforms the capability of the leader would be. Literature on cognitive development raise serious implications on the connection between cognition and coaching. Some researchers (Wayne, Esra & Jonathan, 2013) argue that meaning and identify remain vital components of coaching. Similar to the theoretical underpinning of the cognitive development theory, it is necessary for coaches to blend their feedback in a way that reinforce the realization of identify. Coaching is a process that creates change and often leaders find themselves in transition where their capabilities advance. During this period, lack of identity or meaning can be catastrophic to the personal development of leaders. However, coaching that focus on blending feedback with consideration of the meaning and identify of leaders are highly effective. This is because leaders who know their identity are highly motivated to embrace learning. As a result, a coach must problem the understanding of the leader about his identify and meaning before providing feedback. In the absence of identity, it could be necessary for the coach to help the client develop a sense of identity. The rationale of this approach follows on the cognitive development stages where a preceding stage affects the proceeding stages of learning. Cognitive development has a fundamental impact on how individuals believe. During coaching, coaches must provide unbiased feedback to coachees, but it is necessary to base this on the cognitive levels of an individual. During the cognitive development level of children, there is a point where a child becomes egocentric and looks at the views of other people through his or her perspective. This tendency does not go away as some adults still main ego centric tendencies. A study on feedback (Grossman, & Owens, 2012) revealed that some individuals think that some feedback are unlucky and underestimate their actual performance. In the study, Grossman and Owen (2012) found that a significant number of participants noted that unbiased feedbacks had underestimated their performance by 13%. This implies that coaches must understand the cognitive level of leaders would be before providing feedback. In cases where coachees are likely to overestimate their capabilities, it is necessary for a coach to rationalize this tendency and help the leader would be understand the value of the feedback. This stance would make the feedback effective and vital in transforming the capabilities of the leader. On the big five-personality model, there is a strong connection between openness and feedback seeking. During the process of coaching, it is thought that individuals who are open to new experiences tend to seek feedback more than those who are less open (Ashford, Blatt, & VandeWalle, 2003). When coaching, a coach must ascertain the likelihood of a leader to receive feedback. In cases where individuals tend to seek feedback, it is possible for a coach to provide feedback more often than in cases where individuals have negative feedback seeking patterns. Instead, this such a case necessitates the leader to provide feedback that promotes the relationship between the coach and the client. For instance, clients form different cultures have different feedback seeking traits, which relates to their openness to new ideas and insight on performance. In cases where leaders are less welcome to feedback, a coach must devise a way of providing bits of feedback while enhancing the capability of the coachee to receive feedback. Future direction executive coaching The current focus on leadership have made significant gains. However, the future of executive coaching should explore new perspective of coaching. Presently, the focus has been on the “what of leadership,” but the focus should change to “how of leadership.” In addition, future research should also focus on how to achieve ownership of development where each individual own his or her development (Lennard, 2010). This would be a move from the current approach where training companies are responsible for the development of leaders within an organization. References Ashford, S. J., Blatt, R., & VandeWalle, D. (2003). Reflections on the Looking Glass: A Review of Research on Feedback-Seeking Behavior in Organizations. Journal of Management 2003 29(6) 773–799 John, O. P., Robins, R. W., & Pervin, L. A. (2008). Handbook of personality: Theory and research. New York: Guilford Press. Kail, R. V., & Cavanaugh, J. C. (2010). Human development: A life-span view. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Lennard, D. (2010). Coaching Models: A cultural Perspective. New York: Routledge. Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2010). Leadership: Theory, application, skill development. Australia: SouthWestern/Cengage Learning. Mattone, J. (2013). Powerful Executive Coaching. Broadway, New York: AMACOM. Nevid, J. S. (2009). Psychology: Concepts and applications. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Phillips, J. J. & Ashby, F. C. (1999).Developing Effective Leadership Programs. Alexandria, VA: American Society for Training and Development. Piaget, J. (2001). The psychology of intelligence. New York: Routledge. Stern, L. R. (2008). Executive coaching: Building and managing your professional practice. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons. Van, B. D. L. (2007). College study skills: Becoming a strategic learner. Boston, MA, USA: Wadsworth Cengage. Vigoda-Gadot, E., & Drory, A. (2006). Handbook of Organizational Politics. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Pub. Wayne, B. M., Esra, O., & Jonathan, P. (2013). The development of meaning and identity within coaching. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. Witt, L.A., Burke, L.A., Barrick, M.A. and Mount, M.K. (2002), ‘The interactive effects of conscientiousness and agreeableness on job performance’, Journal of Applied Psychology,87(1), 164–9 Read More