WHY IS COACHING ESSENTIAL TO GREAT LEADERSHIP?
There are various leadership styles we can exhibit, and one of them is the coaching style.
Coaching requires patience, instruction, and feedback. In a fast-paced working environment, leaders often find it easier to answer a question or solve an issue rather than coaching, as it takes less time. Ironically, the long-term coaching results override the initial time taken, and it is worth adapting your leadership style to have more of an emphasis on coaching your employees. At its core, coaching will help you work with your employee to become:
- More self-aware
- Help them move forward, learn, develop and grow so they can take on more, and
- Create more satisfaction in their roles as they take on added responsibility in their positions.
Coaching is a positive and powerful tool that you can use to improve performance, results, increase engagement and company culture.
I challenge you; the next time you are about to answer or solve a problem for an employee, think long-term and coach the employee through the process, I appreciate that it will take time, but the outcome will be worth your return on investment.
You cannot teach a man anything.
You can only help him discover it within himself.
-Galileo Galilei
Coaching benefits:
- Coaching can positively impact performance, culture, and the bottom line.
- Coaching can help individuals unlock their potential
- Ongoing coaching dialogue improves clarity and understanding of expectations
- Coaching allows leaders to delegate, give challenging assignments, and promote an environment of learning and knowledge
- More companies are trying annual bonuses to a leader’s development of their direct reports. The reality is that there is an understanding that coaching does positively affect bottom-line results
Listen intently and ask powerful questions
When we listen, we are not distracted by anything else around us. The individual has our full attention, and we are not as prone to jump in and provide an answer, solution, or fill in the gaps.
Ask powerful, short questions. When formulating a question, I keep in mind two things:
Why are they telling me this?
What’s the real problem?
I then follow with an open-ended question that starts with ‘What…‘
Try the following questions in your next one-on-one:
- What should we focus on (a work project, people issue, or behaviour) discussing that will help you most?
- What is the heart of this issue for you? Tell me more… what else…
- What is the challenge, and why is this important to you?
- What have you done so far to address the issue?
- What is your ideal outcome?
- What is the next best step to take?
Most people do not listen with the intent to learn and understand. They listen with the intent to reply. They are either speaking or preparing to speak.
-Stephen Covey
Don’t be the bottleneck
Leaders and managers need to coach their people. Coaching helps decrease overdependence overwhelm, and this dependency creates bottlenecks and frustration for both leader and staff member.
Stop being the bottleneck and allow your team members to develop. Coach your team members to help them learn and grow.
Empower your staff by giving them the responsibility to do their job, coach them through knowledge gaps and then allow them to run with it. Autonomy allows the employee to learn by doing and demonstrates your trust in their ability. Trust that there will be setbacks and debrief on these areas in your regular one-on-one meetings.
Coaching Tips
- ask one question at a time
- listen with intent for the facts and maintain neutrality
- ask ‘what’ questions
- be curious about the details
- focus on what matters most
- explore off-hand comments (what is not being said). They will often assist in getting to the heart of a problem
- ask questions that will help the individual expand the way they are thinking about the problem or issue
- don’t use rhetorical questions that offer advise
- Using the 80/20 concept allow the staff member to speak 80% of the time and yourself only 20%
If you would like more information on leadership and coaching tactics, and you need someone to keep you accountable for your process and execution, I can be contacted at +1-604-616-1967 or jenny@jennyreilly.com. If you want monthly leadership tips, sign up for my JRC newsletter or check out my social media on Instagram for top leadership advice throughout the year.
