Friday, March 31, 2023

The journey to leadership coaching of PIA's 'crème de la crème'

By Renelle Luzon Escuadro

BUTUAN CITY --- The Philippine Information Agency (PIA) through the Human Resource Development Department (HRDD) conducted a Training on Leadership Coaching in a Performance-Based Culture from March 21 to 24, 2023 via Zoom platform to capacitate and empower the officers and top performers of PIA.

On the first day, the participants were tasked to provide their expectations of the four-day leadership and development training participated by the Philippine Information Agency’s very best – deputy director generals, regional heads and their deputies, and the top performers from the different divisions in the central office, and the regional offices.

Some were hungry for new perspectives while others were in a new journey of leadership. With the current innovation in leadership and the workplace, they were optimistic that there would be new coaching methodologies and concepts and strategies. For others, it was an opportunity to replace outdated knowledge.

Spotlight on the need

PIA acknowledged that coaching has been practiced in the workplace informally, with humble acceptance of the absence of coaching tools and system for monitoring and reinforcement. The training brought everyone to the realm of coaching leadership.

This is a big, relevant step taken by its Human Resource Development Division.

Communication is the core of the agency. As such, the agency believes that communication anchored on the principle of leadership coaching is vital. This is the lifeblood of quality output, employee engagement, performance, and empowerment, among others.

A subject matter expert unlocked the door for PIA's 'crème de la crème' to journey with leadership coaching in a four-day grounding.

Removed from the comfort zone, officers and top performers of the agency actively listened to the productive discussion and, thereafter, on an equal and fair call, all were given the opportunity for hands-on learning.

The ‘A Team’ of PIA Caraga with the guidance of Regional Director, Venus L. Garcia raised the bar so well with the involvement in the discourse, crafting the scripts for the role play with actual scenarios both in administrative office management and operational governance.

Learning tidbits

“Leadership coaching begins with self-awareness which means understanding the impact your thinking and behavior has on others-as well as your own personal effectiveness.”

This is a famous line of one coaching advocate.

More than knowing the introvert and extrovert personality principles, the opportunity to realize the different psychological preferences on how people perceive the world and make decisions through Myers–Briggs personality type indicator allowed the creams of the crop to widen their horizon and acceptance of the self and others.

Coach and coachee: it takes two to tango

Commitment is not a one-sided guarantee. Rather, it requires mutual understanding and agreement of both parties, the coach and the coachee. No matter how meaty or fluid the communication is, if no sturdy agreement is reached to fix behavior and situation, the dialogue is placed on shallow water, resulting in mediocrity.

Indeed, the virtual expectators were grateful to the resource speaker for allowing them to learn new coaching styles.  

Above all, everyone is more excited to immerse in the learning curve as formal leadership coaching kicks off in the workplace, with high expectation that this journey will be life changing. (DMR/RLE/PIA-Caraga)