REPUBLIC OF KENYA

MINISTRY OF STATE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE

COUNSELING SKILLS FOR EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP

OPONDO FELIX O

Clinical Psychologist

GOVERNMENT COUNSELOR

SESSION OVERVIEW

• This session focuses on the organization/counseling, meaning of counseling various issues that require counseling at work place (the clinical and contextual issues).

• Relationship building in counseling, the skills of counseling at work place, process, process and challenges of counseling at work place.

SESSION OBJECTIVES

• Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:– Define counseling– Explain issues and problems that a leader

would intervene in at work place.– Describe the relationship building in

counseling– Explain counseling skills in leadership.

Introduction

• The problems that employees either bring to the work place or experience within it are many and varied. It is possible for an individual to remain unaffected at one place by problems based in the home and vice versa. This invasion will and does occur however great the effort by the individual to prevent it taking from place or being detected.

• The emotional/psychological wounding may result to a number of physical responses and stressors by the end lower production, performance, morale, and development of a negative attitude at work place.

• Counseling provides the foundation to the employees to process their emotional wounding/ psychological disturbances by being helped to either cope with the situation or deal with them.

• We are moving from management era to leadership era. The growing trend at the beginning of this century involves a shift from power over people i.e. management to shared power, commitment and vision (leadership)

• “People do not want to be managed. They want to be led, whoever heard of word manager? World leader, Yes, educational leader, political leader, religious leader, scouts leader, community leader, business leader, they lead. They do not manage… if you want to manage somebody, manage yourself. Do that well and you will be ready to stop managing and start leading” De Souza (2001)

Why Counseling in Leadership

When you CHANGE YOUR THINKINGYou change your beliefsWhen you change your beliefsYou change your expectationsWhen you change your expectationsYou change your attitudeWhen you change your attitudeYou change your behaviourWhen you change your behaviourYou change your performanceWhen you change your performanceYou CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Note: Counseling is about Change. Change for positive and change for emotional and psychological growth

Story of the Eagle

The eagle has the longest life-span of its’ species

But to reach this age, the eagle must make a hard decision

It can live up to 70 years

Its’ long and flexible talons can no longer grab prey which serves as

food

In its’ 40’s

Its’ long and sharp beak becomes bent

Its’ old-aged and heavy wings, due to their thick feathers, become stuck to its’ chest and make it difficult to

fly

Then, the eagle is left with only two options: die or go through a painful process of change which

lasts 150 days.

The process requires that the eagle fly to a mountain

top and sit on its’ nest

There, the eagle knocks its’ beak against a rock

until it plucks it out

After plucking it out, the eagle will wait for a new beak to grow back and then it will pluck out

its’ talons

When its’ new talons grow back, the eagle

starts plucking its’ old-aged feathers

30 more years

And after five months, the eagle takes its’ famous flight of rebirth

and lives for ...

What is counseling?

• Counseling is a helping process that uses safety engendered by a special kind of relationship to help individuals to get access to a greater part of their personal resources as a means of responding to the challenges of life. It uses specific skills and techniques in that relationship to help people become more competent, more contented and more creative. It does not deal primarily with mentally ill but with normal individuals facing all the difficulties involved in domestic, occupation and social life. Its about helping people to grow in emotional health and fitness McGuiness J. (1998)

Factors that facilitate a conducive relationship

• Empathy

• Genuineness

• Unconditional positive regard

Goals of counseling in leadership

• To help to improve the performance of staff/employees as psychological and social issues affect the employees cognitively, health wise, etc.

• Reduction of work related accidents that have negative effect in performance.

• Allows the staff to ventilate their emotions, develop cognitive understanding in their emotional issues/difficulties.

• Helps the staff to balance between personal life and work.

• Reduction on dependency on organization and increase in self-sufficiency.

• Reduction of absenteeism through health related issues as 90% of all outpatient and in-patient problems are directly or indirectly related to stress.

When Leaders should counsel or refer for counseling

• When a member of staff under performs.• When a member of staff does not respond to

motivation.• When there is marked change staff’s behaviour

i.e. persistent lateness, drunkard ness, aggression, illusion/hallucination, psychic numbness, negativity.

• When staffs disregard the consequences of their behaviour i.e. drunkard ness, constant lateness, accidents, etc.

• Incase of intense emotional development i.e. rage, anger, withdrawal, hurt and etc

• Incase of psycho-trauma, crisis, loss and bereavement within work place

• When there is persistent conflict and a stand off between staff, departments/sections etc.

• Incase of career stagnation.• Some staff live with HIV in employment,

legislation stipulate their support, with psychological stability through support and acceptance through counseling they can continue to be productive and useful in their areas.

Counseling skills

• What are skills?– The meaning of the word skill include

proficiency competence and expertness in some activity the essential element in a skill is the ability to make and implement an effective sequence of choices so as to achieve the desired objectives.

Purpose of Counseling Skills

• Healing/emotional growth• Decision making• Problem solving• Self discovery• Empowerment• Handling crisis and conflict• Strong interpersonal and intrapersonal

skills

Specific Counseling Skills in Leadership

• Structuring• Listening • Attending skills• Summarization• Minimal prompts• Paraphrasing• Reflection of feelings• Questioning• Confrontation• Self-disclosure• Silence

Satisfaction is being able to cope with your situation if you cannot be able to change it and

that is CHANGE - the greatest component in leadership

“anonymous”