Building a Strong Organizational Culture Through

Conversation Coaching Methods

Emilia Ramadhani and Humaizi

Universitas Sumatera Utara, Jl. Dr. T. Mansyur No. 9, Medan, Indonesia

Keywords: Corporate Culture, Communication Skills, Coaching

Abstract: In today's competitive era the company is required to have excellent performance so that it is not inferior to

the times. The most effective way to be able to adjust to the times is to build a strong organizational culture.

With a strong organizational culture, a company will have enough capital to compete in this uncertain era

(VUCA). In creating an organizational culture, leaders need to be careful. Culture is essential to the success

of a company. Yet culture tends to feel like a magic power that few know how to control. This makes most

leaders manage it according to their intuition. This paper offers an alternative that leaders can do to strengthen

the culture of organization by improving their soft skills through conversation coaching methods. By having

the ability of the leader as coach, it is hoped that the values contained in the organizational culture can be well

internalized.

1 INTRODUCTION

Interpersonal and intrapersonal communication is an

important thing that a leader needs to have. Ladegard

and Gjerde (2014) emphasized the importance of

companies focusing more on leadership development

programs on internal processes (soft skills) rather

than external (technical) competencies on the

grounds; Effective leadership increases along with

the internal development of the leader.

Communication skills are one of the internal

developments in question.

However, empirical research shows a gap

between the perception of the importance of

communication as a soft skill and its strong relevance

in organizations. In a recent study, the vast majority

(87.0%) of the 2,027 professionals working in

communication departments across Europe stated

that communication has become more important to

their organizations but only 14.8% of them reported

budget increases compared to other functions

(Zerfass et al., 2013).

Humans communicate with each other in a two-

way process, the sender and receiver of a

communication message. The senders ends

information, be it the data, feelings, or ideas they

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8520-9724

want to convey, and the recipient confirms that they

heard or saw the information. How recipients respond

to messages can change sender behavior (Tennant &

Toney-Butler, 2017).

This is where the importance of a leader has the

ability to respond in empowering himself and his

subordinates through coaching methods.

Conversational coaching communication skills are a

method of leadership development that contributes to

the performance of the company (Ladegard &

Gjerde, 2014.

The main purpose of coaching is to increase

personal awareness and strength, facilitate the

expansion of identity so that one has more choice

when responding to an event, focusing ahead and

thinking on a positive solution base, having a clearer

goal as well as a commitment to take action in

achieving it. Ultimately, people in an organizational

environment will see themselves as responsible and

in control of their choices. The basic principles agreed

upon by the parties supporting this process are self-

responsibility, respect, acceptance, confidentiality,

integrity, transparency, flexibility and neutrality.

The basic skills that a person who has coaching

expertise will use in facilitating the transition of

others, as well as in applying these principles, are;

active listening, meaningful questions, and

244

Ramadhani, E. and Humaizi, .

Building a Strong Organizational Culture Through Conversation Coaching Methods.

DOI: 10.5220/0011565100003460

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Social and Political Development (ICOSOP 2022) - Human Security and Agile Government, pages 244-250

ISBN: 978-989-758-618-7; ISSN: 2975-8300

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

presentations. To be able to fully apply these skills, a

leader acting as a coach must develop core and

authentic values and be involved in the process of

learning and self-development that is sustainable in

his or her life. A leader must also be confident inhis

or her ability to activate Self Regulation,

effectiveness, and transformation.

Coaching has become a new trend in the last 5

years as it is scientifically proven to have a positive

impact on increasing personal, professional and

organizational potential. But there are still many

parties who cannot distinguish between coaching and

other development methods. Maka need to agree in

advance the terms coach and 'coaching' which have

many definitions and are used by different parties for

different purposes.

Here are some definitions of coaching:

 A coach transports a valued person from where

they are to where they want to be (Webster

Dictionary.

 A pragmatic approach to help people manage their

acquisition or improvement of skills and can be

either directive or non-directive (David

Clutterbuck, 1998)

 A collaborative solution -focused results-

orientated and systematic process in which the

coach facilitates the enhancement of performance,

life experience, self directed learning and personal

growth of individuals and organizations (Anthony

Grant, 2006)

 The facilitation of learning and development with

the purpose of improving performance and

enhancing effective action, goals achievement

and personal satisfaction (Peter Bluckert, 2006)

 Coaching is a change process that mobilizes the

strengths and realizes the potential of an

individual or an organization (Institute of

Coaching)

 Unlocking a person's potential to maximize his or

her own performance. It is helping them to learn

rather than teaching them (Center for Creative

Leadership).

In this paper itself will be used the definition of

coaching from the International Coaching Federation

(ICF) which straightforwardly states "Coaching is

partnering with clients in a thought provoking and

creative process that inspires them to maximize their

personal and professional potential.

After understanding the definition of coaching,

the next question is how is the practical application of

coaching different from other development methods?

In short, this difference can be explained as follows:

 Training: Activities organized to provide

information and/or instructions to improve the

performance of the participants to enable them

to acquire a certain level of knowledge or skills.

Characteristics of Trainee-Trainer Interaction

 Mentoring: Developed by more experienced

people and understands the context for

inexperienced people in the form of reference

coaching (usually success stories experienced

by mentors)

 Tips: Activities that provide advice

(contributions, tips, suggestions, referrals) from

more experts to less experts in the form of

benchmark submissions / observation results as

observers without any context. Advice is often

confused with coaching even when coaching in

the sense that the book does not give advice to

practitioners at all.

 Consulting: Completing activities to meet the

specific and contextual needs of organizational /

personal motivation in the form of complete

solutions in the form of research, plans,

strategies, in the current process. Typically,

consultants work in teams, from two people who

form a consulting firm due to the complex

nature of the work and the long spans of time

they face.

In addition to the four approaches developed

above, coaching as a method of constructive

empowerment needs to be distinguished by

counseling and therapy which is a specialized field

for psychiatrists and therapists. In general, coaching

is not allowed to use counseling and therapeutic

techniques that focus on correcting the client's past,

while coaching assumes everyone does not need

growth improvement (not fixing but developing) and

focuses more on the future (vision).

Thus it can be said that the requirement of being

a leader is no longer a matter of technical skills, but

human relations that are able to empower others so

that through teamwork, the organization can achieve

its goals through people and inter-independent

leaders.

Each organization has its own specifications, in

accordance with its vision and mission, as well as its

culture and values in its management. Nanus (1992)

put it, "A vision is a realistic, credible, attractive

future for your organization". A vision is a statement

containing clear directions about what the

organization should do in the future, in the vision of

providing targets and identifying opportunities. A

clear, consistent and in accordance with the needs of

the organization will be able to foster: employee

commitment to work and able to foster employee

morale, a sense of meaningfulness in employee work

Building a Strong Organizational Culture Through Conversation Coaching Methods

245

life, excellent work standards bridge the current and

future state of the organization.

Furthermore, Jackson (2000) stated that in terms

of role, vision as an aspirational statement for people

who work in organizations in order to plan their

activities oriented towards individual commitment

(personal commitment), service (service),

supervision, results (results), connected management

and response to change (change responsive). Failure

to translate vision into operational activities must be

avoided within the organization. Therefore, it must be

emphasized on how everyone involved in the

organization can apply the vision as a centerpiece to

its operational planning. The success of the vision can

be achieved if everyone in the organization is able to

describe the same intentions of fellow colleagues with

regard to the meaning contained in the formulation of

the vision and make the vision as a strategy for the

work activities carried out.

Jesper Kunde (2000), stated the importance of

vision, mission and values for companies in

organizational management: "For the future business,

the values behind the product is therefore becoming a

more important aspect for gaining a competitive

advantage in market competition. Mission and vision

will however remain empty words if the company is

not united around a set of values the corporate

religion. Corporate religion is the set of values that

unites the organization around a mission and vision".

From the statement, it can be concluded that the

management strategy of a form of business must be

guided by the vision, mission and values that must be

understood by everyone involved in the organization.

The vision and mission requires the help, support of

every individual who has reliable commitment and

competence. Commitment to the perspective of

behavioral science begins with the values developed

in the organization that form the basis for creating a

work culture.

Figure 1: Vision, Mission, and Strategy Differential.

Figure 2: Vision, Mission, and Strategy Differential

Michael Hyatt (2020) in his book The Vision

Driven Leader: 10 Questions to Focus Your Efforts,

Energize Your Team, and Scale Your Business makes

a mapping of how vision is connected to

communication, but theauthor believes that

communication and its impact are not limited to

vision alone, but also mission, and values that exist in

the organization.

Unlike the corporatism of communication that

focuses on communicating vision, mission and

strategy explicitly in achieving clarity, intrapersonal

communication in the work environment requires an

implicit activity (intrapersonal communication) that

reflects vision, mission and values in the form of a

conversational culture in building creativity,

responsibility and action commitment in order to

make it part of personal identity (intuitive).

Then what is the role of the leader in the

implementation of culture with the coaching ability

he has? In this case, youneed a real role of the leader

in managing the values of the organization (Peters

and Waterman, 2004). Leaders must also develop an

organizational culture that can support the

achievement of the vision and mission of the

organization that has been established (Trioctavia et

al., 2016). The role of organizational leaders as role

models involved in supporting, communicating, and

following up on subordinates (subordinates) becomes

important in the successful implementation of

ICOSOP 2022 - International Conference on Social and Political Development 4

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organizational culture (Alvesson and Sveningsson,

2008).

Organizational culture is an unwritten rule and has

even become a habit that lasts since the beginning of

the establishment of a company. Organizational

culture can also be a trademark of a company if the

rules applied are very unique. This is certainly very

simple, but many people and even an HRD in a

company do not understand and understand that

organizational culture plays a very vital role.

Organizational culture is related to the value

(value) of a company. With value, it can be known

how much responsibility the people in a company

(Guiso et al., 2015)(Barth & Mansouri, 2021; Guiso

et al., 2015). Every company or organization has an

organizational culture. Company /organizational

culture plays an important role in creating smoothness

in all aspects that run in the company. Organizational

culture is a foundation that contains norms, values,

ways of working employees and habits that boil down

to the quality of organizational performance

(Fiordelisi et al., 2019; Franzoni, 2013). Leaders as

coaches are considered capable of internalizing the

values contained in organizational culture.

The focus of the problem in this literature review

is as follows:

1. Leadership means what the organization

expects in strengthening the company culture

2. What factors affect the strength of the weak

corporate culture

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Open communication is considered one of the key

factors towards effective coaching methods (Park et

al., 2008). This dimension refers to the effective use

of communication techniques to establish good

relationships with employees and facilitate personal

as well as professional potential and performance

(Gilley et al., 2010).

In particular, leaders as coaches engage in formal

or informal conversations using techniques such as

asking strong questions, and active listening,

empathetically, and lovingly (Whitmore, 1992;

Graham et al., 1994; Gilley et al., 2010). Framing of

questions is considered important as a coaching-

based leadership behavior that encourages employees

to think about their problems (Ellinger et al., 2003).

The question that voke is the question that stimulates

motivation and further gives rise to deeper awareness

and self-reflection (Kemp, 2009). Likewise, the right

level of empathy, understanding, compassion, and

acceptance creates an environment in which

employees can feel free to express their emotions and

ideas (Graham et al., 1994; Grant and Cavanagh,

2007a; Kemp, 2009). With the help of leaders,

employees gain awareness, engage in reflection, and

improve their ability to take responsibility for their

self-development (Darrat et al., 2011)

In a meta-analysis of leadership impacts, Avolio

et al. (2009) define leadership intervention as

focusing on leadership manipulation as an

independent variable through training, assignment, or

other means. These researchers show that the most

common goal of these interventions is leadership

training and development. Further research has

suggested that leadership intervention programs

should focus on knowledge and skills that can

improve leader effectiveness (Amagoh, 2009). These

interventions generally involve training in a

workshop format, participation in executive

coaching, or a combination of these two approaches

(Kelloway and Barling, 2005).

There are some questions about how leaders can

be directed to display a coaching-based leadership

style. In particular, the leader as coach program aims

to improve the quality of leadership in organizations

by providing coaching skills training (Graham et al.,

1994; Hagen, 2012; Grant and Hartley, 2014). The

increasing demand for leaders with coaching skills is

generally associated with many ofthe benefits that are

recognized to be felt, such as improved employee and

organizational performance (Liu and Batt, 2010;

Ellinger et al., 2011; Kim et al., 2013; Tanskanen et

al., 2019).

In addition, previous research has also identified

leaders as coaches as powerful developmental

interventions to motivate, develop, and retain

employees in organizations (Ellinger et al., 2011).

Although leaders are often expected to apply the

principles of coaching in the workplace, and many of

them express a desire for further training, these

development programs do not always focus on

specific coaching skills . In fact, in order for

operations not to be disrupted, training needs to align

these skills with personal and professional goals

(Milner et al., 2018)

The second approach involved in leadership

intervention is executive coaching, which is an

increasingly popular approach to help executives

develop leadership skills or behaviors and improve

their performance and, overall organizational

performance (Feldman and Lankau, 2005; Gray,

2006). The number of organizations using executive

coaching to develop leaders is increasing every year

as it is considered one of the dominant methodologies

for developing effective leaders (Grant, 2001). An

Building a Strong Organizational Culture Through Conversation Coaching Methods

247

effective way to support leadership development in

organizations is with a strength-based executive

coaching approach (MacKie, 2014). This approach is

based on the discipline of positive psychology, which

focuses on developing positive qualities, rather than

dealing with negative aspects such as weakness and

pathology (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2014).

Strength-based coaching is based on the

identification, development, and use of personal

power to drive positive outcomes such as goal

achievement, optimal function, fulfillment, and well-

being (Linley et al., 2010b). Inleadership

development, this approach provides a structure that

includes strength awareness and balance, pairing

strength with leadership skills, and aligning it with

personal or organizational goals (Williams & Parker,

2016).

The use of coaching behavior as a method of

improving performance has gained popularity in

organizations (Boyatzis et al., 2013; Chendikia et al.,

2016). However, relatively few empirical studies

have tried to test the efficacy of training and

development of leaders as coaches (Grant, 2001).

This is surprising because researchers have

previously reported that leadership interventions can

be useful in developing and improving coaching skills

(Styhre, 2007; Ellinger et al., 2011). In another study,

David and Matu (2013) found the positive impact of

managerial coaching programs on improved

coaching skills reported by managers themselves and

by external observers. Similarly, research conducted

by Cummings et al. (2005) through quasi-

experimental studies, about the attitudes and

intentions of leaders to become coaches improved

significantly after taking workshops on how to train

their employees.

In the face of rapid change and uncertainty, the

company realizes that managers cannot be expected

to have all the answers and that command-and-control

leadership is no longer viable. As a result, many

companies are moving toward a coaching model

where managers facilitate problem solving and

encourage employee development by asking

questions and offering support and guidance rather

than giving orders and making judgments. The

authors explain the benefits of different types of

coaching—directive, non-directive, and situational—

and note that sometimes there is no appropriate

coaching at all. They explain how managers can use

the four-step GROW model to become more skilled

at listening, asking questions, and drawing insights

from the people they oversee. The paper concludes

with a recommendation to make coaching an

organizational capacity—influencing cultural

transformation by articulating why coaching is

valuable to both companies and individuals, ensuring

that leaders embrace and model it, build a coaching

culture across the board, and remove barriers to

change.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Corporate culture certainly affects the behavior of

members or individuals and groups within a

company. The company culture that exists in the

company can be strong and can also be weak.

Corporate culture is said to be strong if these shared

values, attitudes, and beliefs are understood and

embraced firmly and high commitment, so that a

sense of community can be created. Conversely, if the

company culture is weak, it is reflected in the lack of

commitment of workers to shared values, beliefs and

attitudes that are usually carried out or agreed upon

(Siswanto and Sucipto, 2008: 146).

The company culture must be in accordance with

the vision of the company's mission. This is useful so

that the vision of the company's mission can run well.

The company culture is a reflection of the behavior of

the higher-ups in the company. Many employees do

not understand very well about the meaning of the

company's culture correctly. What many people think

of, company culture is an attitude or behavior shown

by leaders in the place where they work. Not only

that, company culture is also the identity of a

company. With a strong corporate identity, a

company will not be affected by the culture outside

the company. Even the company culture is very

influential in the expected performance of its

employees. A good corporate culture is able to make

employees work optimally without feeling pressured

and forced

Wallach, (1983) argues that "Organizational

culture is a shared understanding of beliefs, values,

norms, and philosophies of how things work". The

company's ability to perform in a way that

competitors cannot, is a competitive advantage the

company can achieve by creating a culture in which

employees believe in performance (Schein, 2004). A

strong organizational culture increases employee

productivity by motivating them to achieve common

goals and objectives (Schein, 1990; Voon et al.,

2011). Many empirical studies have found that

organizational culture has a significant positive

impact on employee productivity (Barney, 1991;

Duckworth et al, 2007; Ojo 2009, 2010).

A great culture is not easy to build – which is why

a high-performance culture is a strong competitive

ICOSOP 2022 - International Conference on Social and Political Development 4

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advantage. But organizations that build big cultures

are able to meet the demands of the fast-paced,

customer-centric, and digital digital world we live in.

More and more organizations are beginning to realize

that culture cannot wait for opportunities. Leaders

should treat cultural building as an engineering

discipline, not a magical one.

Leader as a coach as one of the abilities that must

be possessed by leaders is considered able to form a

strong organizational culture by incorporating values

in the company culture through everyday

conversations and in coaching sessions. Through

coching, leaders can form the right level of empathy,

understanding, compassion, and acceptance thus

creating an environment where employees can feel

free to express their emotions and ideas. With the help

of leaders, employees gain awareness, engage in

reflection, and enhance their ability to take

responsibility for their own development based on the

values that exist in the company culture.

4 CONCLUSIONS

From the results of the literature study that has been

done, it can be concluded as follows:

1. It takes a leader who has the ability to coching to

be able to internalize the values contained in the

organizational culture. Organizations can make

shorts with the leader as coach or executive

coaching program.

2. Leaders are a major factor in shaping a strong

organizational culture. But leaders need to

reformulate the communication values contained

in organizational culture so that they can be

applied in coaching conversation methods.

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