Welcome to the sixth episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders! This week's topic: The Importance of Making Time to Coach.

I begin the show by speaking about my first job out of school and revisiting our coaching definition from episode #2.

If you want to know what is important to people, look at their calendar and in their checkbook.

Why don't we make time to coach?

People don't know the correct way.

Perception that things take too much time.

I cited some of Larry Bossidy's comments and lessons from the book Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done.

Coaching takes time. Are you investing time into coaching? Here are four ways to get started:

Contract with the other party on development priorities

Plan out the schedule of when to meet and what to do - book it

Follow-through on your coaching commitments

Be flexible and yet consistent

You make life easier during review time as well if the above four things are done consistently. Make a commitment this week to do one of these things above.

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I'd love your feedback on this show as well as any questions or topics you'd like me to address in future shows:

Visit CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback to submit comments, questions, or feedback

See you in a week for the next episode!