The term “coach” conjures a variety of images including loud voices, really bad short pants, and obnoxious whistle blowing. But coaches come in many forms, and leadership coaching is an essential part of effectively managing a team in any industry. After all, a leader’s job is to help his or her team succeed.
The best coaches are genuine partners who work alongside their teams to build their capacity, competence, and skills. They understand that they must be present for the people they lead and thus appreciate that their own success is embedded in the team’s accomplishments.
Here are four leadership coaching techniques that can help you position your team for success.
Build Relationships & Know Your People
Authentic leadership coaching occurs when trust is established beforehand. Naturally, the better we know those we’re coaching, the better we can imagine the best approach to lead them. The ideal follow-up frequency, their preference for feedback, and their strengths and weaknesses are all learned as you get to know your people.
Trust building is often counterintuitive. Your own vulnerability can help pave the way for those you’re coaching to be vulnerable and open themselves. So, sharing how you are growing and admitting your own mistakes and shortcomings can help build mutual trust.
Ultimately, a trust-based relationship with your team establishes that you have each member’s best interest in mind. When it comes to addressing mistakes and shortcomings, where defensiveness is to be expected, trust will be especially helpful in working through the issue to effectively forge a path forward.
Start With a Collaborative Goal
All successful teams and companies have goals. Your prior knowledge of your team and its individual members should dictate the best approach to leadership coaching to determine and achieve yours. Paul Thorton suggests three general coaching styles:
- Directing. Telling your team the goal and why it’s required
- Discussing. Asking questions and establishing the goal as a group
- Delegating. Ask your team to establish a goal and return with a rationale for their new goal
No matter what style you choose to use, your team must own the goal. Even if you use a directing approach, allow the team to debate and tweak the goal so they feel like they have a say and will be more committed to undertaking it.
Not only does a collaborative goal encourage and motivate your team, but it also holds everyone — including you — mutually accountable for the goal’s progress or hindrance.
Develop an Action Plan
Every goal needs a clear, measurable, specific action plan so both you and your team can observe your progress and achievement (or lack thereof).
Part of leadership coaching is guiding your team to make achievable goals. SMART goals, when done well, can help create both an effective goal and an action plan and should be:
Specific. Lay out your exact goals. If your team wants to achieve the highest sales in your division, for example, set a dollar amount or number of sales to work toward.
Measurable. Immeasurable goals (like “the highest sales”) aren’t great motivators. An amount of dollars or a number of sales give you a specific number to strive for, which makes it easier to know when you’ve achieved that goal and when you can push the goal post further.
Attainable. Be realistic. Unattainable goals make teams lose steam fast.
Results-oriented. Ask your team to find and outline their why. The goal should be tied to their why, giving them a purpose and a reason to achieve it.
Time-stamped deadlines. Giving yourselves a deadline prevents slacking or aimlessly striving for a goal.
A good rule of thumb is that subjective goals require the manager to decide the outcome. Effective leadership coaching, however, means measuring the goal objectively and ensuring the data is available to both manager and employees.
Follow Up
A goal without a plan is just a dream. Following up with your team regularly allows you to discuss what went well, what worked and didn’t work, what needs to be improved, and where the plan can be refined.
As your team questions like, “How do you think it’s going?” and “Are you happy with the results?” See their answers as opportunities to monitor progress, offer encouragement, provide additional leadership coaching support, and praise accomplishments.
Leadership coaching is an effective tool in the manager’s toolbox that should be used often and effectively. It’s on-the-job training that helps employees connect the dots and see the big picture. We all desire independent, motivated, and engaged problem-solvers and active learners. Leadership coaching promises that outcome.
How do you use leadership coaching with your team? Let me know in the comments!