Role Consultancy / Coaching
Discovering new perspectives on how we inhabit our work roles, and bringing ‘under the surface’ dynamics into focus
Role consultancy provides an opportunity for managers, leaders and staff at all levels to examine the ways in which they take up their work role, and to explore personal effectiveness and consequent impact on their areas of responsibility.
My preference for the term role consultancy, rather than coaching, reflects the emphasis that my approach places on the different elements that shape how a particular individual inhabits their specific work role at a given time.
Examples of these elements are:
organisational culture, system and purpose
professional and life experiences of the role holder
scope and task of the work role
personal and organisational notions of authority and leadership
sector and societal contexts
emotional and relational landscape that the role holder is part of
past, present and future narratives that inform expectations and priorities for the role
How can role consultancy help?
Staff at all levels routinely perform their roles within pressured environments, with little time and space to think about and reflect on the unconscious and systemic dynamics within which they work.
In addition to the explicit elements of their role, managers and leaders also act (knowingly and unknowingly) as emotional containers for staff and the wider organisation, and play a pivotal part in the ‘emotional life’ of their workplace. The impact of these dynamics is often felt by individuals, but not necessarily consciously engaged with in order to examine the impact on wellbeing, satisfaction and effectiveness at work.
Role consultancy offers managers, leaders and other staff support to discover fresh insights into themselves at work, and into their organisations, which can inform new ways of enabling (and sustaining) high levels of performance, productivity and staff engagement both personally, and across areas of responsibility.
Providing this support through a consultant external to the organisation enables an ‘outside the system’ position to be held throughout the work. This helps to maintain rigorous thinking and challenge, as well as offering managers, leaders and other staff a neutral space in which to engage with potentially difficult material and test out possibilities.
workplace roles and settings
While this support is beneficial for all managers, leaders or other staff in any setting, it is especially helpful for those whose role is particularly susceptible to complex and difficult dynamics and / or those who are taking up a new role, for example:
Roles based in settings that are undergoing substantial change / re-structure
Roles that are responding to high demand with constrained resources
Roles that function in a highly competitive environment
Roles that involve working with people in various degrees of need, distress or crisis
Individuals taking up a new role / new to the organisation
Roles responsible for, or working as part of, teams and projects that are experiencing performance or productivity issues; low staff morale; anxiety; uncertainty; difficult dilemmas; conflict
University sector experience
I held a number of management and leadership roles during my 25 years in the UK Higher Education Sector, specifically relating to student wellbeing services and strategy. Through this, as well as my work as an organisational and role consultant, I have extensive experience of working with academic and professional services managers, leaders and other staff, where I have seen the profound impact that a safe, reflective space to process work role experiences can have.
Other settings
I provide role consultancy for all levels of staff, especially those in management and leadership roles, across all sectors - public, private and third (including social enterprise).
While my past professional experience of holding leadership roles informs my current work as an organisational and role consultant, I have found that the absence of sector specific expertise brings a valuable dimension to this work by helping to maintain a position of ‘not knowing’ and enabling collaborative exploration of potential blind spots.
delivery
Role consultancy is offered one-to-one.
Sessions are normally 90 minutes each and the number of sessions is mutually agreed, with a block of 6-8 sessions being most common.
Some clients feel that their role requires more regular support e.g. monthly sessions, rather than a one-off block of sessions. See Supervision for Managers if you are interested in this.
Sessions normally take place at your organisation’s premises, or online via Zoom.
Please contact me to discuss role consultancy for you / your organisation, and for my fees.