LEADING YOUR TEAMS THROUGH COACHING
When I first became a manager of people, I remember feeling like I’d made it. In the very competitive and ambitious business culture in which I worked at the time, having responsibility to manage others felt like a significant achievement on the career ladder.
I had myself experienced both great bosses and difficult bosses at that time. I’d been on several training programs and received coaching and mentoring from various inspirational people. I had been hungry to learn and found methods that had helped me to grow and develop.
And so, I assumed that those same methods would work on the people I was now responsible for managing.
They didn’t.
Like most people who become managers and leaders, I was given no training prior to the promotion. I was expected to ‘crack-on’ and ‘figure it out’, whilst also making sure the ‘job got done’. Whilst I enjoyed the challenge aspect of ‘figuring it out’, I certainly did not enjoy the anguish and stress it brought with it. I was often left feeling like I needed to learn the art of mind reading, communication was difficult, tensions arose, boundaries were drawn. Managing the work sometimes felt like I was chasing jelly around. I was left feeling unable to pin anything of significance to a plan to move us all forward together. With those in my team I found difficult, I didn’t feel listened to or respected. It was quite shattering for my self-esteem and at the time made me try even harder to ‘manage’ the situation rather than facilitate it or find a different way through.
I’m sure my team too, in those early days, felt their freedom had been taken away. A different manager with high ambition and another approach to accommodate for, ‘how things should be done’. More change to adjust to. They were as frustrated as I was but for different reasons.
It wasn’t long before I asked for some additional training. I hoped that there might be some kind of course I could go on to get good at managing and leading others. I knew I wanted to be good at leadership. I needed to find a way of being respected and let go of my need to be liked.
At this stage in my career a revived passion for learning was ignited in me. There was so much to learn about effective management and inspirational leadership.
The benefits of taking a coaching approach to leading others
When you’re put in charge of managing a team of people, it’s true that the job must get done. There are many ways to get the job done. I’ve come across really hands on managers who would almost do the work for me (which was no fun for me I can tell you!). I’ve come across managers who are so hands off I wasn’t ever really sure if I was working on the right thing. I’ve come across dictatorial managers who were specific and prescriptive in their approach and left little space for me to bring my own skills and talents. And I’ve been fortunate to work for some pretty amazing managers who gave me enough direction and freedom that I was able to find my own way to thrive. To feel like I was learning and growing, but also supported. It’s this kind of manager that helped me grow the most and it was this kind of manager that helped me find my own authority and power so that I could be of greater use to the businesses I worked in.
These kinds of leaders tend to adopt a coaching approach to their leadership of people. They recognise that individuals have way more potential in them. They understand that people are more than just the current role they are in. They hold a belief that people can grow, they can develop, they can mature, they can take responsibility for themselves. A coaching leader knows how to create the right environment for that kind of learning to take place, without feeling the need to meddle or interfere. They do their best to facilitate learning and then to get out of the way of that learning, so that those they lead can thrive.
They are also savvy enough to realise that if they give more attention and energy to developing their people, with an upskilled and more confident capable workforce, they are more likely to have more time to focus on the strategic future of their team/ department/ business. Not getting caught up in the reactive rescuing nature of fire-fighting in the here and now.
Developing the skills of coaching as a leader
Adding the skills of coaching to my leaders’ toolkit was a fantastic investment in my time and energy. It was the single most important way that I found to optimise the talent of my team (alongside facilitating the strategic future direction of the part of the business I worked for).
Learning the skills of coaching taught me how to listen deeply to others. To get out of the way of another’s learning journey and learn the skill of presence. It also offered me the chance to learn how to ask really powerful and effective questions I could use to get a deeper understanding of the drivers and motivations each member of my team had. Coaching gave me the capacity to uncover and work with a breadth of diversity in terms of their beliefs, hopes, ambitions by fuelling my curiosity for why people do the things they do and how that makes is different not the same. It offered me tools, for adapting my own default style in order to create a learning space for my people that worked for them (rather than just for me). That was a lightbulb moment. If I wanted to get the most from my team, I needed to learn how to sit alongside them and get curious about what walking in their shoes felt like. I needed to suspend (or clarify) any assumptions I was making about what motivated them and what they might need from me and instead be willing to figure it out together. It also helped to enhance my feedback skills.
As a leader, coaching skills can be utilised greatly for the more formal developmental sessions you hold accountability for. Being able to give clear, purposeful and constructive feedback to someone in your team about the impact they have whilst doing their work and knowing how to pay attention and be present whilst they respond, is paramount to helping them reach their potential.
Coaching skills aren’t just exclusively held for deeper career development and performance review sessions either. Coaching can be utilised for on the job micro moments. A problem solving opportunity, a challenge being faced, a difficulty encountered. Coaching in the moment can help to unlock creativity, resourcefulness, and resilience.
As a result of my curiosity about people and my commitment to learn, my team thrived. It became the team people wanted to work in, the place graduates prioritised for their placements. The way we worked together and the coaching approach I took as the leader was a huge motivator for those who wanted to do well in their work. There was freedom to learn and reach their full potential.
The challenges of coaching as a leader within an organisation
Coaching as a leader is hugely rewarding, but it isn’t always easy or fun. Especially when you’re coaching within an organisation and you are the leader. To do it well, you have to be able to hold several different agendas at the same time.
· The overarching context of the organisation; its strategic direction and what it needs from its people.
· There is the individual themselves (their hopes, fears, motivations, preferences).
· And crucially there is your own context as the coaching leader. How do you hold your authority and also sit alongside and support someone who is your direct report? How do you cultivate trust and psychological safety? What might you need to let go of in order to make more space for the other to find the answer within themselves?
These are all great questions and working with them consciously is a skill. My experience shows me that taking a coaching approach is a definite ‘win-win’ situation. It’s personally rewarding for you as the leader and will have a powerful impact on your team, both in terms of performance and job satisfaction. The benefits to your organisation will inevitably follow.
For more information about how our executive and management coaching training or coaching skills for leaders can benefit you, see.
Jennifer Potter