Leader as Coach

Coaching is a leadership competency and is all about performance, feedback and learning.  Leadership development is self-development. 

People are different--they come from different places emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. A coach's challenge is to meet the client where they "come from," so they can take the action they truly desire.

Professional coaches help leaders build their own coaching capability....so they can build the capacity of those that they coach at work.  Coaching inspires people to reach heights they never imagined they could reach on their own.  A coach understands what others need to know to achieve their own results, and how they can facilitate that happening.

Simply stated, leadership is an interactive conversation that pulls people toward becoming comfortable with the language of personal responsibility and commitment. 

Effective coaching can happen on the dance floor of conversation.  It's OK to begin a conversation by confronting the other person with questions that seem awkward but set the stage for a respectful exchange.  Why waste time on small talk?   Just ask to-the-point information-seeking questions, like: "What are you here for?  How do you want to spend our time together?"

Conversations are not meant to be structured.  Leaders must be open to conversations that they are unprepared for and focused on the interests of the other person (not the leader's purpose).  Personal transformation happens when the right questions get asked--not by providing answers.  When you focus on the solution, you are trying to sell the person something.  When you allow people to answer their own questions, they discover what they were not aware of---and what is needed to move forward.  Personal transformation leads corporate transformation--one person at a time.

Focus on Connect, Clarify and Commit

Many executives decide not to coach and mentor associates because they are uncertain as to how to approach them and concerned about the time it would take away from their functional duties.

However, leaders as coaches and mentors can make a huge difference in a person's life with little effort.  And coaching isn't a distraction from getting work done, it's about building trust with the people where you work and managing the relationships that gets the work done.  Results are achieved while people understand what they need to learn through your coaching and mentoring.

Many employers struggle with providing performance feedback to correct workplace issues.

Employees want to succeed in their work.  Most accept that goal-directed feedback is an effective means of guiding their work activities to be in concert with team and organizational goals.  By having a performance feedback conversation with the employee (where you coach while doing more listening than talking), you can insist that he or she tell you what will be done to correct the situation.  The impact on the employee will make him or her responsible for personal actions and sets clear expectations.  The consequence is he or she has the opportunity to design a solution to the issue.

Too many executives receive poor or no coaching.

They miss opportunities to become more effective in their positions of influence and are often denied promotions they deserve.  Hiring an executive coach can help them enormously. It’s the right tool to alleviate common leadership problems.