Leader as Coach

Leaders need good leadership coaches, but can also act as coaches for their team. Doing so can improve organizational performance, engagement, culture, and morale. What key techniques should you employ to act as an effective coach? Listen in as Bill and Ralph discuss.

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*Note: The following text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors

Bill Berthel:

Welcome to the Get Emergent podcast. Our podcast is focused on individual team and organizational development and performance. We focus on topics such as leadership, human development, raising consciousness, and awareness. We aim to provide creative concepts, new ideas and pragmatic tips and practices for leaders in all walks of life. I’m Bill Berthel.

Ralph Simone:

And I’m Ralph Simone.

Bill Berthel:

And today we’re going to revisit a podcast we originally released in the spring of 2023 called Leader as Coach. We’re putting this out again as a lead to a small series of podcasts on this topic, Leader as Coach.

Ralph Simone:

And I hope that doesn’t put us out of business, but what do we mean by this idea of leader as Coach Bill?

Bill Berthel:

Yeah, yeah. No, I love that challenge of putting us out of business. I think that’s actually part of our mission is that if we were no longer needed, the leadership in every organization would be reaching their potential. But let’s talk about this coaching modality, right? What coaching is to begin with leaders who coach really aren’t too different we think than athletic coaches. They’re capable and regularly practice highly directive and highly supportive leadership behaviors. We got to talk about what that looks like, Ralph, and I know you’ve got a lot to contribute to today’s conversation. Directive behaviors. Directive behaviors.

Ralph Simone:

I think people are hesitant just because of the word to tell people what’s needed, why it’s important to the organization and when it’s needed by just you use the example of a sports coach. Those things are all very clear and in some cases how to do it. In some cases, our role is to instruct people, and I was kind of laughing when we first started because I remember when I first added coaching to my business 20 years ago, my father wanted to know what sport,

Bill Berthel:

Right? Exactly.

Ralph Simone:

But it is the sport of corporate performance. And I think that while there are some differences, if we really looked at the leader coach model from the world of sports, I think both our performance and our consciousness would increase significantly. Would you agree?

Bill Berthel:

No, I love it. I love it. I think when clarity, when structure, maybe fundamentals and direction is needed, a good leader coach doesn’t hesitate and they know just the right amount to dial in the right amount of direction too much, and you’re that micromanager. I think that’s some of the hesitation. We don’t want to micromanage. We don’t want to over control too little. You’re causing unnecessary ambiguity and confusion.

Ralph Simone:

We want to find the sweet spot and I think we find the sweet spot through experimentation, but what you can’t do is not do it. Now, we talked about directive, but you used another word leader as coach, supportive. And what do we mean by supportive behavior?

Bill Berthel:

Yeah, so supportive behavior. So 87% of American workforce is moderately to highly capable, meaning their skills, their knowledge, their abilities are proficient or better. However, their commitmen