Coaching is a powerful tool for developing your leadership and team performance. It can help you enhance your skills, overcome challenges, and achieve your goals. But how exactly does coaching work and what are the benefits of engaging in it? In this article, we will explore some of the key aspects of coaching and how it can improve your leadership and team performance.
Coaching is a collaborative process that involves a coach and a coachee. The coach is a trained professional who supports, challenges, and guides the coachee through a series of conversations and activities. The coachee is a person who wants to improve their performance, skills, or personal development. Coaching is not about telling the coachee what to do, but rather helping them discover their own solutions and actions.
Coaching helps us to sort out our thoughts and actions, situations and challenges. We often understand challenges cognitively, without understanding them emotionally. In other situations, we deeply feel, without understanding the complexity and systemic of our interactions. Reflection begins while talking situations, perceptions and thoughts through. Reflecting on what has been said, and being asked for what we haven't said, allows us to connect the dots, take different perspectives and develop new solutions. In coaching, changes at first become thinkable, then speakable, and finally doable.
Everyone can serve as a coach, whether they're formally trained or not. A good coach has a servant leader mindset and genuinely wants to help people realize their full potential. The coach doesn't push their own views or agenda, rather they help a coachee discover the truth about themselves, their situation, and how they should move forward in alignment with their values. Through the coaching process, the coachee nurtures a positive outlook toward their circumstances.
Yup - not a bad summary. The holy grail of coaching - at least in leadership and executive circles (as opposed to sports, for instance) is self-awareness. This means consciousness of one's inner dynamics from moment to moment. It does not mean familiarity with one's strengths, weaknesses and personality profile, all of which are tiny fractions of what it means to be human. When you begin to see exactly what is going in your thinking and feeling worlds, everything else comes into focus and it enables the leader to understand others, because she understands herself. The pursuit of self-knowledge and awareness opens the doors to clarity, serenity, resilience and much better decision-making.
In the Situational Leadership book by Kenneth Blanchard, coaching can be helpful to a new team member. Often they start off very willing but they don't know what to do. Per the book this calls for Hi Task, Low Relationship (Director). Later a person loses willingness, maybe they have made a few sales calls and it did not go well, thus willingness goes down and they are still unable. Situational Leadership says I should coach, High task and High relationship. Finally, "train the trainer" taught me to coach people until they are fully released. Keep observing, keep coaching (telling the associate what to do) until you watch their entire routine (process) and you never say a word. They are released.
Every Olympian, Professional athlete and most respected record holders all had a coach of coaches. A great coach will patiently and lovingly identify what we’re doing wrong and help us improve to become better than our former selves and others competing to be great in the same space we are.
Leaders face many demands and expectations in their roles. They need to set a vision, motivate and inspire others, communicate effectively, manage change, and deal with conflicts. Coaching can help leaders develop their self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and leadership style. It can also help them identify their strengths and areas for improvement, clarify their goals and priorities, and overcome obstacles and challenges.
Every great leader from Steve Jobs to Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Ariana Huffington have all had and continue to work with coaches. This investment in ourselves it truly the differentiator between being our best selves and being status quo, or average.
Coaching can be a clear mirror, that reflects blind spots as well as ressources one was not aware of. It is deep talk in a quality you do not get with colleages and friends.
Leaders need coaching because every next level of growth demands elevated behaviours too. A shift in perspective becomes very essential. Conversations with an experienced Coach can help explore newer perspectives.
Leadership is a journey, not a destination. A journey that's evolving every day. To stay on top of the game, leaders must need a guiding light. A coach helps. A coach shows them the mirror, asks tough and uncomfortable questions, and compels them to self-introspect. This way, the leaders get avenues to sharpen their axe and shine their pearls. Also, coaching is always a two-way street; both the coach and coachee have to be equally committed and ready. it's a symbiotic arrangement where both benefit. We often get entangled with the mundane tasks that we tend to forget the larger goal or the mission. Engaging with a coach helps us stay the course.
No one needs coaching, we are very capable on our own to navigate our own lives. The only problem here is that we were taught along our life very unuseful strategies and patterns of thinking that stifle our natural progress. Coaching helps getting back to our authentic way of being in the world, shows us what kind of principles guide our life and where the misunderstandings we have block our natural expression. During coaching you clear out your path from interfering elements so that whatever challenge stands on your way you deal with it without holding back. You become self-aware, present and distinguish accordingly your following steps based on the situation not based on your personal point of view.
Coaching can also have a positive impact on your team performance. By coaching your team members, you can help them grow and develop their potential, increase their engagement and motivation, and foster a culture of learning and feedback . Coaching can also improve your team's communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. By coaching your team, you can also demonstrate your trust and support, and create a stronger relationship with them.
Coaching will shine light on all our shortcomings and provide roadmaps and exercises for us to improve them. This includes how we empower, train and deal with our teams. The credo rings true: FOREVER WE RISE.
A systemic team coaching focusing on topics of relevance will no doubt provide a better foundation for collaboration and performance. Team coaching is often confused with team building - however - team coaching work with the teams relevant topics and hence need to be planned careful with the team and/or leader of the team. Team coaching often results in alignment, less interference and doubts about responsibilities and as a derivative performance increases with no negative side effects!
Team coaching comes with a warning: only coach the team, once you have coached its leader. In fact, the best team coach is the leader themself. I will only coach a team in leadership if I've already worked with the team leader and that the team coaching is under their auspices. It is very easy to undermine the leader and fracture the team unless you observe this rule.
In house, corporate training can improve skills. But most skill improvement is lost if a follow-up systematic coaching plan is not in place. Get out and observe the work that is being done and provide feedback. Coaching is labor intensive. We can't be in our offices on a computer and really make the observations and provide the feedback from a distance. We have to be concerned about making others better. We are not the competitors, we are not on the field, we are getting the competitors ready. This is a Good To Great - Collins, lesson - we have to have personal humility (unselfish) and professional will (making sure others are capable of success).
Coaching helps members of your team know themselves, understand others, learn how to develop rapport through effective communication while offering how to resolve conflicts. In fact, I insist that my Coachees stop using the word "problem" and replace it with "situation"... It changes the energy around...
If you want to engage in coaching, you need to find a coach who suits your needs and preferences. There are different types of coaches, such as executive coaches, career coaches, or life coaches. You also need to consider the coach's qualifications, experience, approach, and personality. You can look for recommendations, testimonials, or reviews from other clients or colleagues. You can also have a consultation or a trial session with the coach to see if you have a good rapport and alignment.
Spend some time with any coach that you're considering working with. Personally, I offer the first coaching at no charge so both myself and the prospective client can decide if there's a good fit. Everyone is not the right client for me or for any coach. Spending an hour actually working with a prospective client, gives us both the chance to get to know each other. I'd also recommend avoiding any kind of hard sales approach where you feel pressured to make a decision. Coaching is a very personal profession. High pressure sales don't work well here.
Always do an alignment check,l to ensure your personalities, goals, and expectations align. Look for social proof, clearly define your goals, and make sure you’re going to take it seriously. Often the best way to ensure this is to pay premium amounts for top-rated coaches – this will provide perceived value and make you more likely to take it seriously to get a substantial ROI.
I highly recommend that a prospective coachee spend time interviewing a couple of coaches. The questions to ask yourself when selecting a coach are: "do I want to spend more time with this person?" and "can I learn from and trust this individual?" Those will be keys to building a strong coaching relationship.
Before choosing a coach, ask yourself why you want a coach. I've saved myself a lot of headaches refusing clients that have been sent to me with the goal of being promoted, more money, etc. You are already a leader, so a coach telling you how to be a better leader is a yellow flag. At this level, it's no longer about goals and skills but about the quality of your mind. To go to the next level, you need to be yourself really willing, together with the coach, to take a journey on the dark side. The coach must be the mirror to help you see yourself honestly, and to have you ask the right questions so that you can move past your own fears and insecurities. This way, your leadership evolves to one where head and heart are flowing together.
HOW do I get chosen? I think it is about demonstration of authenticity, a commitment towards sharing and giving and a consistency of behavior and experience that reflects from my stories and trust that yes I can help....What else it can be? My advice has always been - Choose your coach wisely. If not me someone else. Don't postpone living and doing better... Life is slipping...
To make the most of your coaching sessions, you need to prepare yourself mentally and practically. You need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve from coaching, and what are your current challenges and opportunities. You also need to be open and honest with your coach, and willing to receive feedback and try new things. You also need to set aside enough time and space for your coaching sessions, and avoid distractions and interruptions.
I think the preparation you need to do is committing to showing up and vulnerably doing the work. The coach will guide you, but s/he will need you to be an active partner for the sessions to be productive. It's not the coach's agenda, but yours, that drives the sessions. Coaches aren't mentors or consultants. It's not their job to tell you what to do. But it is their job to help you gain the insights and change you want. ;-)
Some of the most engaged coachees I've worked with carve out 5-10 minutes prior to each session to craft an agenda and set of topics. This allows the coaching session to remain focused and centered on the most relevant topics for the coachee. As a coach, I also prompt my coachees with reflective questions to consider a few days before our sessions. This helps guide the conversation and agenda, which is especially useful in the early days of a coaching relationship.
As we know coaching is a collaborative process,& I see the coachee’s participation as essential for coaching success. I get great outcomes for the coachee when they are prepared & engaged fully in the coaching experience. However, it’s my role as the coach to help my clients set clear outcomes for the coaching session; to help them self-reflect; clarify and establish plans, actions, help them problem solve, I need to create the environment that enables the client to share openly, be vulnerable, open to receiving feedback and observations. I need to be fully present, listening, communicating. If the client is engaging fully in the coaching experience, they can maximize the benefits and achieve their goals & outcomes more effectively.
You don't need to prepare at all. A good coach will do that for you in the first few minutes. You don't even need to know what you want to achieve - again, a good coach will uncover that. However, you absolutely do need to be free of distractions, no matter what your role is.
There are numerous benefits coaching brings to team dynamics. By facilitating open and honest dialogue, team members gain a deeper understanding of one another's perspectives, strengths, and areas for growth. This leads to improved collaboration, as individuals learn to appreciate diverse viewpoints and leverage each other's skills effectively. Secondly, coaching fosters trust and accountability within the team. Through coaching sessions, team members are encouraged to set goals and define their roles and responsibilities, promoting a sense of ownership and commitment, leading to increased accountability for individual and collective performance.
Coaching is not only something you receive, but also something you can give. As a leader, you can apply coaching skills in your daily interactions with your team and others. You can use coaching skills such as active listening, powerful questioning, positive feedback, and goal setting to help others learn and grow. You can also create a coaching culture in your organization, where people are encouraged to seek and offer coaching, and where coaching is integrated into the performance management and development systems.
Leadership is also about developing others, encourage them and unleashing their full potential . As a leader coach you would benefit yourself and your team if you can recognize their streghts, goals, motivations and consider this information for the best allocation of the work and building a culture of trust and transparency in communication.
It might not be a popular opinion but I don't think we all can coach effectively, especially members of our team, because it's not easy to withdraw our personal needs from the conversation and solely focus on the coachee. We can have the ABC of coaching in our pocket and use it like the emergency first response medical training, but we want to let a professional coach be a part of change in our company or department. So we assess the need, ask a team member if they would be open to external support and go for that instead of having internal conflict of what shall I put first - employee wellbeing or company's objectives. It's all possible to address and positively resolve, but not always an easy feat when we are a part of the situation.
Here's a handy acronym for listening with your body. SOLER: Sit, Open, Lean forward, Eye contact, Relax. Sit at 45 degrees to the person or beside then, rather than sitting across from them or facing them across your desk. Keep your body open; don't cross your arms or legs. When you slightly lean forward, it conveys your interest. Make sure your tone conveys interest. If the person you're talking to is emotional, you can build connection and safety with them by saying: > I can hear that you're feeling X. > I can see that you're feeling X about doing X. > I get the feeling that you're feeing X about X. > Let me see if I've got it right: You're feeling X, and you're <annoyed, upset, distrustful, etc.> with X.
In order to be a good coach, I feel it's important to coach my team both together as a group and individually throughout the year. I provide a leadership retreat before the school year begins so that we can discuss and exchange ideas for improving ourselves as the leadership team and how to improve our supervision for the coming year. This one day activity builds a culture of community, honesty, camaraderie and affirmation. Individually, we can coach through the harder times of the year, guide our teams to build more resilience and assist in reaching their personal and professional goals. Coaching is the best part of my job!
Leadership is not about having all the answers but about enabling others to find their own solutions and reach their full potential. Your goal as a leader should be to help the members of your team adopt a 'Growth Mindset.' Coaching skills are a means to achieve this, and when leaders embrace them, they can create thriving and purpose-driven organizations. Consider launching a mentorship program at your company to help your team further adopt a growth-related mindset.
Coaching dient dazu mehr Klarheit und Handlungsoptionen zu erarbeiten. Wenn jeder im Team die Ziele, Strategie und das Vorgehen kennt, ist ein Team effektiver und Wahrscheinlichkeit viel h?her, dass sie dies erreichen.
Coaching has played a pivotal role in grooming my leadership style by providing valuable insights and guidance on self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and effective communication. Through continuous coaching, I have honed my leadership approach, leading to improved relationships with my team, better decision-making, and increased overall effectiveness in driving success. My teams have developed stronger interpersonal skills, better collaboration, and a sense of ownership in their work. This has resulted in increased productivity, higher job satisfaction, and a collective drive to achieve common goals, ultimately leading to a healthier and more successful team.
Coaching a team is fundamentally centered on cultivating team awareness. Empowering team members to grasp not only their individual strengths but also the collective strengths of the team holds significant power in propelling the team towards its objectives. Acquiring these valuable insights into a team's dynamics through team coaching creates an excellent opportunity to address team weaknesses and mitigate their impact. Assessments like StrengthsFinder are specifically designed to guide teams in leveraging their strengths and honing in on what they excel at.
I view coaching as an investment in yourself and your dreams. Once you gain clarity on what you want, working with a coach who supports you and holds you accountable, helps you create new results and build the habits and confidence to keep going. You are what you think and many people need help re-creating what they think, especially about themselves.
Wenn die Führungskraft ein Coaching in Anspruch nimmt, profitiert auch ihr Team davon. Denn Anliegen, Verhalten und Klarheit in der Rolle haben auch Auswirkungen auf die Teamleistung. Eine Führungskraft, die klar in ihrem Verhalten und in der Selbstführung ist, führt definitiv besser