The must-have skill of a leader

Knowing how to coach is now a must-have skill of a leader

Leaders don’t necessarily have to be great coaches (though the impact would be amazing), but the ‘new’ world of work now demands solid competence and confidence in coaching to draw out the innate talent and capability of those you lead.

There’s universal agreement that coaching works. It is a conversation intended to develop an individual’s (or team’s) capacity to play their best game.

Coaching skills help leaders and those they coach encourage self-reflection, greater self-awareness, and develop intrinsic motivation. This, in turn, leads to a more agile and empowered workforce, with a greater sense of their abilities and how to use their unique talents to the best effect. This results in greater discretionary effort, improved effectiveness, and higher levels of performance.

This describes the kind of workplace culture that every leader should aspire to achieve. And of course, this can be achieved by developing the right skills and mindset required to coach effectively. So, what are the effective coaching skills that the leader as the coach needs?

First and foremost, the key single predictor of effective coaching outcomes is a healthy, trusting, and professional relationship. This is the primary building block for any effective leader, and unfortunately, this is often either missing or assumed.

Assuming that you have an effective working relationship already and a fundamental belief in the potential of others, then what are the effective coaching techniques in the workplace?

The baseline is learning to remain as non-directive as possible. ‘Ask, don’t tell’ is the coach’s watchword.

As soon as you start to tell someone your opinion or give them your advice, you are thinking and taking responsibility for them. An effective leader as a coach will make every effort to avoid disempowering the coachee and move the responsibility for thinking towards the coachee.

So what are the key skills needed to achieve this?

At Coaching Focus, we believe there are 4 core elements, Effective Listening (we think we are all good at listening, but sadly my experience tells me otherwise), Structuring the Conversation (the GROW model is ideal for this) the ability to Process the Coachees Data effectively and finally, if needed, knowing when to or not to Add Our Own Knowledge.

Developing skilful agility with coaching requires both skills development and behavioural change, and our coaching programmes help leaders develop and embed both and enhance these coaching leadership skills.

There is no excuse for saying, ‘I’m too busy in my job to coach’ – learning, developing, and maximising an individual’s potential IS the job of a leader.

Of course, monthly or weekly 1:1's are a great opportunity for formal coaching. But every conversation with anyone, anywhere and at any time, is also a great coachable moment - to listen, understand, and ask powerful questions that raise awareness and help the individual to grow and flourish.

This can take just a few minutes (possibly the most valuable few minutes of your day, by the way), and there may be many such opportunities that occur. And this is the other key coaching skill for leaders in the workplace – the skill of spotting opportunities to coach (coachable moments) no matter how brief, that will raise someone’s awareness, help them clarify their thinking, and get them back into responsible action.

By using coaching every day in this way, leaders will build stronger relationships with individuals, create a learning and action-oriented performance culture, and build a truly empowered and intrinsically motivated workforce that will be fit for the new world of work.

If you are interested in learning how to coach as a leader or become an internal coach able to coach professionally within your organisation, please get in touch - trayton.vance@coaching-focus.com