When you think of a great coach, who comes to mind?
Maybe it’s a top-tier athletic coach, or someone who coached you as a youth. Maybe you’ve received skillful coaching from a work supervisor or mentor. Whatever the context, all great coaches invest time and energy in developing the skills and confidence of others. They excel at cultivating the potential of individuals and teams. The mission of a great coach is to help others succeed.
Watching a great coach in action is inspiring, but it’s not always easy to translate their techniques into actionable steps that help us lead better at work. We’re busy. Our teams are complex, and our goals aren’t as black-and-white as the numbers on a scoreboard. But I believe all great coaches have four skills in common, and any leader can level up their own coaching game by putting them into practice:
1. Start with your own mindset.
Employees naturally look to their manager to set the tone for the team. Do you blame and complain, or take ownership? Is it a crisis or an opportunity? When you make a mistake, do you cover it up or honestly put it out there as an example for the whole team to learn from? Your attitude about questions like these is contagious, which means your own mindset can be your greatest asset. Be honest with your self-assessment. By virtue of your position as a leader, your influence is magnified. If you project a negative, disengaged, or victimhood mindset, it will spread to those you lead. But if you are genuinely curious, growth-oriented, and solutions-driven, those qualities will become the team’s gold standard.
2. Ask more and better questions.
Think of the last time someone asked you a good question–one that made you stop and think. Questions do more than elicit information. They can build trust, spark creative ideas, mine for conflict, and prompt honest self-assessment and feedback. To ask more and better questions, first cultivate genuine curiosity and then plan your questions accordingly. If you think you already know the answer, ask yourself, Do I really? What could I be missing? Challenge yourself to convert yes/no questions into more thoughtful, open-ended questions. Pick an unexpected icebreaker to start your next meeting. Finally, put Michael Bungay Stanier’s seven key questions from The Coaching Habit into rotation when you dialogue with team members. They can be used to set up almost any coaching conversation for success.
3. Give frequent informal feedback.
Have you ever watched an elite coach make multiple, tiny adjustments to an athlete’s stance? Dramatic improvements in performance require focused attention and continuous feedback. Similarly, annual performance reviews are not sufficient feedback for anyone who truly wants to grow, and those are the only people you want on your team. Emotional intelligence researcher Daniel Goleman says that leaders who excel at coaching engage in steady, informal dialogue with employees about their performance and goals. This provides employees with clarity about what’s expected of them and how their tasks support the overall vision or strategy. They trust that they’ll receive timely, helpful feedback as they stretch themselves, which builds confidence. Best of all, the support of continuous feedback increases commitment. Goleman says, “(The) implicit message is, ‘I believe in you, I’m investing in you, and I expect your best efforts.’ Employees often rise to that challenge with their heart, mind, and soul.”[1]
4. Take the training wheels off and let go.
Remember that the number one goal of a great coach is to help others succeed. As you build your team members’ skills and confidence, they grow in their capacity to perform independently, and perhaps even to surpass you in certain skills or accomplishments. It challenges many of us–who have spent years, if not decades, refining processes and becoming subject matter experts–to let go and trust our team to get the job done without us. Other managers are beloved because they are always there, providing solutions, expert advice, and a path forward, but that’s helicopter management, not coaching. Coaches use a technique called scaffolding to gradually remove support and guidance as team members become more competent. A similar approach allows managers to plan work assignments that engage their teams in continuous learning.
So ask yourself… Am I a model of the mindset I want my team to embody? Am I asking questions that dig deeper? Am I giving the kind of feedback that inspires growth, confidence, and commitment? And finally, am I cultivating team players who will eventually be able to get results without me? These four aims are the ultimate measure of a great coach.
[1] Goleman, Daniel. “Leadership that Gets Results.” Harvard Business Review, March-April 2000.
