Please share your feedback! I will mean a huge deal. www.ratethispodcast.com/intellicoach Detailed Show Notes In this podcast episode, we will list down some of the reasons that might make a Leader coach or not coach. Indeed, we are not on a mission here to turn you into coaches. It is more important to understand when to use the different styles of interacting with team members. When might we not coach? 1. If there is one right solution, objectively. We have to use our good judgment here. Is our solution (as a Leader) based on objective facts or is it an opinion and a choice? If it's the first, we should not coach; if it's the latter, coaching is useful to unearth further ideas and potential things we missed. 2. If there is one right way. That is not the same thing as #1. If there is a standard process to achieve a certain goal, then there is no use in asking around to find it (given we already know it). Digging in our team members for facts that we know is useful in a training scenario, but it is crushing for motivation in most other cases. 3. If we withhold our actual knowledge and waste a lot of our team member's time. Core skill-building and knowledge transfer require teaching and instruction skills; we would not coach on the content itself. Again, we can explore where there is an opportunity for exploration, possibly HOW someone prioritizes their learning or where they might expect to have difficulty implementing it. 4. If there is absolutely no time and we are dealing with a crisis. That qualification is very important. We rarely deal with a real acute crisis and there is usually enough time to at least ask one or two questions. 5. There simply are times in an organization when the Leader pulls their positional rank for the good of all. That might, for example, originate from culture: if the organization is not ready to accept coaching as an acceptable style, it will be hard to put it in place. 6. Coaching also likely will fall on deaf ears if the Manager-Employee relationship is not a trusting one. Coaching requires a bit of trust. Without it, we should focus on rebuilding trust first and coaching might be a useful way here. If trust is absence, our coaching efforts will be met with suspicion and rejection. In this case, let us rather focus on rebuilding trust. Using Coaching skills can play a part in that, but it is by not means sufficient. 7. Coaching is not a last-resort method to 'fix' someone who is on their way out of the company. Why? because trust is usually broken at this stage and other means are necessary to help here. When we connect coaching to fixing problems, we reduce its usefulness. 8. Coaching is also not Therapy. While that might rarely apply in a Leader/Employee relationship, it is important for us to mention here. Therapy is the right method to deal with trauma; coaching instead focuses on getting someone from where they are today into a more desirable future. These were a lot of reasons why we should not coach. Let's get to the more exciting part: When is coaching really useful? 1. If there are liberty and freedom to chose a certain solution. There is no objective, one right option. It's a matter of opinion. In this case, we can remember that as Leaders will ALWAYS operate from a position of incomplete information. There is always the possibility, that our team member has insight that we don't have. Not accessing it is not only a waste but outright gross negligent. 2. There is liberty to chose a certain path to a solution. HOW would you do it, given the goal that is set? what could go wrong? A lot of coaching as a leader focuses on this area, because very often outcomes are a given thing. 3. We should coach as a sign of respect because the other person might already have an idea for a solution, independent of the quality. Just the fact that we do go and ask, is building confidence and shows that we trust our team member. That alone has a long-term impact on speed and quality of work. 4. Coaching works especially well if we believe that someone's performance is held back not from competence, but motivation, confidence, commitment. It is exactly in this scenario, that coaching plays out all its strengths. It is virtually impossible to tell someone to be motivated, to become confident, to become committed. All these things are self-motivated and solutions to achieve them have to come from within. While they might think of mentoring, the effect here is also limited. 5. Coaching will already work if we identify a coaching moment and that is something we have in almost all conversations. Coaching is a momentary investment of giving up control, but it repays. Coaching saves time later because our team members are r more motivated to work on their own solutions. What we typically see is that they will ask us fewer questions and they are more independent. This is the power of giving autonomy. 6. When trust is present between Manager and Employee Coaching is a powerful amplifier for people to be engaged and excited about their daily work. Coaching gives them autonomy, one of the fundamental elements. 7. When we are a Manager of a highly competent team, coaching can be our prime Leader Style most of the time. Success is in most cases rarely a result of knowledge. Fact is also that team members have more knowledge and depth in the topics they decide. This presents us with a strong case for giving them autonomy. 8. Coaching is very useful to amplify successes. Coaching from Wins. Leaders often forget that and end up using coaching only when there are problems. Enjoy! Connect with us: -------------------------- Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.intellicoach.com/blog Get updated with our Podcast: https://www.intellicoach.com/podcast Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/intellicoach Follow us on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/intellicoach IntelliCoach on Facebook: www.facebook.com/intellicoach IntelliCoach on Instagram: www.instagram.com/intellicoach
