Conversations to Inspire Change
Conversations to Inspire Change Issue 03 2025
Copyright © 2022 by Leadership Institute of Sarawak Civil Service
Coaching to Impact is a twice yearly publication by the Leadership Institute of Sarawak Civil Service, dedicated to advancing civil service leadership and to inspire our Sarawak Civil Service (SCS) leaders with contemporary leadership principles. It features a range of content contributed by our strategic partners and panel of advisors from renowned global institutions as well as established corporations that we are affiliated with. Occasionally, we have guest contributions from subject matter experts as well as from our employees. The views expressed in the articles published are not necessarily those of Leadership Institute of Sarawak Civil Service Sdn. Bhd. (292980-T).
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the publisher’s permission in writing.
Published by
Leadership Institute of Sarawak Civil Service KM20, Jalan Kuching-Serian, Semenggok, 93250 Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.
Editor-in-Chief
Datu Dr. Azhar Bin Haji Ahmad
Editor
Diana Marie Capel
Content Contributors
Helena Ului
Certified Master Performance Coach (CMPC) Masteries Practitioner (IAC)
Niresha Nirnala
Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC)
Maureen Jono
Certified Professional Coach (MIM)
Masteries Practitioner (IAC)
Graphic Designer
Awang Ismail Bin Awang Hambali
Abdul Rani Bin Haji Adenan
Read this issue online at https://www.leadinstitute.com.my/coaching-to-impact/ or Scan the QR code.
The Role of Coaching and Mentoring in Leadership within the Sarawak State Civil Service
In the dynamic field of public administration, strong leadership is fundamental to effective governance. Within the Sarawak State Civil Service (SCS), coaching and mentoring serve as vital tools in developing skilled, visionary, and ethical leaders who can propel the state’s progress. These leadership development strategies ensure that the SSCS remains efficient, innovative, and committed to delivering people-centric public services. As former U.S. President John Quincy Adams once stated, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”
Strengthening Leadership Skills
Coaching and mentoring equip civil servants with the skills, knowledge, and confidence needed to address complex challenges. Coaching emphasizes personalized growth and problem-solving, helping leaders refine their decision-making, communication, and strategic thinking. On the other hand, mentoring supports long-term professional development by allowing experienced leaders to pass down their wisdom and expertise to emerging talents. This aligns with the words of leadership expert Warren Bennis: “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”
Ensuring Smooth Leadership Transitions and Knowledge Transfer
For the SSCS to function effectively, leadership transitions must be seamless. A strong mentoring culture enables the transfer of institutional knowledge, policies, and best practices from senior leaders to their successors. This continuity minimizes disruptions, strengthens governance, and enhances policy implementation for the benefit of Sarawak’s people. As Peter Drucker, a pioneer in modern management, observed, “No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.” A structured coaching and mentoring system ensures that leadership remains stable and effective, regardless of individual changes.
Building a Culture of Excellence and Integrity
Through coaching and mentoring, a culture of excellence, accountability, and ethical leadership is reinforced. Senior officers act as role models, instilling values such as integrity, transparency, and dedication to public service. By embedding these principles in leadership development, the SCS nurtures leaders who are not only competent but also committed to serving the rakyat with honesty and responsibility. Mahatma Gandhi’s timeless words capture this essence: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” Civil service leaders who embody integrity and accountability create a ripple effect, fostering a culture of trust and excellence across the organization.
Driving Innovation and Adaptability
As public administration evolves with technological advancements and changing societal needs, civil service leaders must be adaptable and forward-thinking. Coaching encourages a mindset of continuous growth by challenging leaders to embrace new perspectives and innovative solutions. Mentoring complements this by providing a supportive environment for discussing fresh ideas and alternative approaches, fostering a dynamic and progressive leadership culture within the SSCS. As Charles Darwin famously noted, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” The ability to adapt and innovate is crucial for civil servants leading Sarawak into the future.
Enhancing Employee Engagement and Retention
A well-structured coaching and mentoring framework increases job satisfaction and motivation among civil servants. Employees who receive guidance and support from their leaders are more likely to feel valued and engaged in their work. This positive environment reduces turnover rates and ensures that the SSCS retains experienced, dedicated personnel who contribute to Sarawak’s long-term development goals. Leadership expert Ken Blancha.
Datu Dr. Azhar Bin Haji Ahmad
Chief Executive Officer
Leadership Institute of Sarawak Civil Service
The Value of Coaching
Helena Ului
Certified Master Performance Coach (CMPC) Masteries Practitioner (IAC)
Breaking the About Coaching Misconception
Coaching has long been associated primarily with the sports arena, where athletes work with trainers to refine their skills, enhance their performance, and achieve competitive success. This limited view often leads people to think that only those in athletics require coaching to unlock their potential or meet their purposes. Coaching is a multidimensional process that exceeds the confines of sports. It is essential for fostering growth in various aspects of life, including personal development, career advancement, and interpersonal relationships. In personal development, for instance, coaching can help individuals set meaningful goals, build confidence, and cultivate better habits. In a professional context, coaches assist individuals in navigating career transitions, improving leadership skills, and enhancing workplace communication. By providing tailored support and guidance, coaching empowers individuals to identify their strengths, overcome obstacles, and create actionable plans for achieving their aspirations, no matter the setting.
Initially, I was sceptical about the value of coaching in my life. As someone who does not engage in many physical activities, I wondered why I should invest my time in coaching. I assumed that coaching was primarily for individuals eager to refine their athletic abilities or improve their physical performance in sports. However, my perspective shifted dramatically when I began to explore the broader implications of coaching. I understood that coaching is not limited to athletic development but encompasses a broader spectrum of personal and professional growth. It is about tapping into one’s untapped potential and enhancing various skills that can be applied in everyday life. Through coaching, individuals can cultivate confidence, set and achieve meaningful goals, improve decision-making, and develop better interpersonal skills. This realization opened my eyes to the profound impact coaching can have, not just in sports but in nurturing a more fulfilled and productive life in any area I pursue.
Lockdowns and pandemics, trade wars, geopolitical tensions –a lot of unexpected, dramatic changes happen in the world, requiring organization leaders to change, too. However, changing can often bring uncertainty and can drag you out of your comfort zone. Therefore, to no surprise, it can also be fearful.
Still, the most successful leaders embrace changes and learn to adapt quickly, cope with the stress of uncertainty, and inspire their teams to leap into the challenging yet promising unknown. How do these leaders manage to “switch” their brains from fear and depression to inspiration and excitement for change?
Contemporary coaches often use positive emotional attractors (PEAs) to pave the way to such sustainable change. That technique is an inherent part of coaching with compassion, the effectiveness of which has been proved through 30 years of physiological and behavioral research and is discussed in Boyatzis, Smith, and Van Oosten’s book, Helping People Change and the Conversations that Inspire Change article in this journal.
In a nutshell, PEAs are some “triggers” that help a person activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the brain’s natural arena for creative thinking and innovation. Although people may have different PEAs, some are more common, such as walking in nature, mindfulness, petting a pet, playing and laughing, meditation or praying, and being with loved ones.
Thus, coaching with compassion does not teach you a “right decision.” Instead, it helps you tune into the creative waves of your brain, that allows you to innovate and find great new opportunities in any change. Now, you embrace change and harvest what the storm brought instead of seeing it as a threat and being frightened by it in a cave!
To further reinforce this effect, leaders all over the globe use another common PEA: resonant relationships. They join groups with their peers or leaders of similar divisions or organizations and meet regularly to help each other with personal and professional development. These groups are called peer coaching groups (PCGs). For decades, they have been conducted by global leaders’ communities and thriving organizations, like the Young Presidents’ Organization, US Department of Defense, Maybank, Microsoft, and Coca-Cola Company. PCGs are scalable and accessible to everyone –even those without a budget. Hundreds of thousands of people in middle and lower levels of management, as well as professionals for which the organization cannot afford to hire coaches or even provide leadership training, can access coaching and systematic developmental support from their peer coaches in a PCG.
What does an organization need to implement PCGs successfully? Not much, actually, and many groups within global corporations even emerge as grassroots initiatives. Depending on the goal, these groups are usually comprised of 7-12 peers that meet regularly (weekly during lunch, monthly over a weekend day, or quarterly for 2-3 days). Moderators (usually one or two of the group members) are important figures who keep timing and help the group follow both the agenda and the established rules for respectful and constructive conversation.
A meeting usually starts with the participants sharing an update about their personal and professional challenges, then choosing some of the most resonant challenges from those updates for the group inquiry. Hence, discussions in workplace PCGs are always timely and relevant. The peer coaches understand each other without effort, as they face the same challenges. Yet, they have different perspectives that can complement their knowledge and create synergy in the face of a global challenge. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many leaders exploited their PCGs to get information about changing environments and laws more quickly, pivoting their organizations by using the experience of others and creating synergy with other organizations. The variety of participants represented in their PCGs combine their collective efforts to overcome emerging problems – like leveraging a bank for a special offer or sharing some common divisions in their organizations: for example, accounting or delivery services.
Within organizations, PCGs also become an arena for exchanging news and best practices during a change. These groups help leaders to better understand such changes and learn how to deal with them. The change becomes not so scary, after all, and participants can even discover how it can benefit them and their divisions.
According to our recent study, there are three main elements to keep in mind while designing an effective PCG: group composition (participants should be from diverse backgrounds and have no conflict of interest), organized coaching process (emphasizing group inquiry of an issue instead of giving advice), and trustful, compassionate relationships.
As PCGs create a climate of support and provide instruments for development and problem-solving for everyone, these groups can easily become an organization’s competitive advantage in the changing world. Therefore, if your employees have not started PCGs on their own yet, it is a great time to arrange the groups in your organization! These groups serve a dual purpose for both the leaders and the employees. First, they will help the participants to quickly adapt to the existing and upcoming changes and facilitate growth. Second, they send a strong message to the employees that the organization cares about them and provides developmental opportunities, autonomy in such self-managed groups, and supportive relationships in the workplace – which are three vital elements of employees’ satisfaction with a job.
undivided attention to whatever that our client is sharing with us. Presence in the sense of physical presence and mental presence. As a coach, we will be present to the words said by the client, the words not said by the clientlooking and observing at the whole-body language of our client, the facial expression, the intonation of the voice of our client, the choice of words used by our client and everything else that we can observe while being with our client. This may seem intense for the coach to appear before the client; however, this is what makes us valuable to the client.
We act as a mirror to the client, for him/her to be able to see himself/herself clearly. A coach will give honest feedback to create awareness in the client. A coach also while being present to listen to the client, will listen without judgment. This is another beautiful and important quality of a coach - to listen without judgment. Some of the feedback we normally get from clients is the fact that they feel safe and comfortable to share because they don’t feel judged. When someone feels that they are not being judged, it is one of the most peaceful feelings one can feel. To conclude on the competency of Maintains presence, it is key for a coach for him/her to be able to listens actively and ask powerful questions.
Another competency which I would like to touch upon is Listens Actively. To listen without judgment is a gift. Often time we received feedback from our coaching certification class that most of the time, they are just pretending to listen but not really listening. There are basically 4 levels of listening- ignoring, pretend, active and engaged. Which category do we normally practice? Pretending to listen seems to be most popular. We sit with our friends or loved ones and we pretend to listen to what they are saying, while our mind is wondering elsewhere. To change the usual state of listening from pretend listening to active listening would take some serious focus. One of the special skills that the coach would bring into the coaching session is Listen actively. Listening actively would require giving full attention to client sitting before him/her. In that 1-hour session, client is the most important person in whole world for Coach. A coach will listen without judgment and will allow the client to share whatever topic or goal that he/she would like to share. As Rumi quoted, “Since in order to speak, one must first listen, learn to speak by listening”.
The third competency that I would like to elaborate for Listens actively is Asking Powerful Question which falls in the competency of Evokes Awarenesscompetency 7. A coach will form questions and in ICF we term it as powerful questions throughout the coaching session to support the client to evoke awareness to the subject matter that the client is referring to. Sometimes when the question is super powerful, the client would need time to respond or find the answer to the question. It may happen that the client would only find the answer to the question well after the coaching session has finished.
These 3 competencies- Maintain Presence, Listens Actively and Powerful question are some of the values that make the coaching session priceless to the client/coachee. These are the skills that we as coaches bring into each coaching session to support our client to achieve the goals they set for the session. In conclusion, most of the time at the end of each coaching session, the clients will feeling liberated and achieve the clarity that they are looking for pertaining to their issues and/goals.
Faizah is a certified Coach with International Coach Federation (ICF), USA and was an exco member holding the post as Director for Membership for ICF Malaysia Charter chapter 2014-2016 (ICF Malaysia). She is also an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) with ICF, USA. She is very active within the coaching circle and also a passionate coach. She personally believes that every leader need a Coach and a Mentor to guide them through work and life challenges. Faizah also holds a Law degree from Brunel University, West London, United Kingdom. As a trainer, Faizah is a Certified Learning Game Practitioner (North America Simulation and Gaming Association/ NASAGA). She has a unique approach in training using Gamification and also Adult Learning model. Her areas of expertise are developing leadership, planning, integrating, driving and executing organisational improvement, innovation and transformation through people and leadership.
Faizah Bazid
Key aspects of this concept include:
2
Coaching Mentoring
Coaching is a partnership focused on goals. In a goal-oriented relationship, a coach assists a person with goal setting, strategy development, and obstacle overcoming. A coach helps individuals identify their goals, develop strategies, and overcome obstacles. Coaches always provide a structured, supportive environment to motivate their clients/coachees.
3
Facilitation
Mentoring involves an experienced person (mentor) assisting and guiding a less experienced person (mentee). A senior employee and a younger employee typically engage in mentoring, a cooperative, mutually beneficial at-will relationship to further the mentee’s career, learning, and growth. Mentors can be a sounding board for mentees’ aspirations and ideas.
Facilitation is the process of leading a team or group through a conversation or decision-making process. Facilitators assist groups in reaching an agreement, settling disputes, and accomplishing shared objectives. Imagine an impartial party supporting a group. A facilitator guarantees effective problem-solving and seamless conversations. Facilitators remain neutral, focusing on the process rather than the content.
Integrating coaching, mentoring, and facilitation provides a comprehensive approach to growth. While each has its distinct purpose, their integration can enhance learning, foster collaboration, and drive sustained performance improvement. What we mean by enhanced learning is that it combines self-discovery (coaching), knowledge transfer (mentoring), and collective intelligence (facilitation) holistically. Skilled professionals often switch between these roles based on their needs. For example, a coach might briefly adopt a mentoring stance when their experience is valuable, or a facilitator might use coaching techniques to draw out quieter voices in a group. By leveraging the strengths of these interconnected methods, we can create a supportive environment in Sarawak Civil Service that empowers individuals and teams to reach their fullest potential, and this is what we need – an organization where leaders who develop leaders ultimately produce a domino effect, guaranteeing that leadership traits are transmitted and leading to more robust and resilient cooperation.
“Leaders don’t create followers; they create more leaders.”
Thomas J. Peters
