How the Best Leaders Coach Employees to New Levels of Performance

Coaching matters regardless of whether it's good or bad.?

The quality of coaching you receive or provide to others can make all the difference in achieving a goal and ascending to one’s potential.?

For most people, “coaching” produces an image of the coach of their favorite sports team or the face of a youth coach from their younger days. While those are examples of coaches, coaching is different. Coaching is a verb. It’s the action a person takes to help improve the current and future performance of others to achieve higher levels of excellence.

Said differently, the title of coach is given, but the impact of coaching is lasting.??

The title of coach is temporary, but the impact of coaching is lasting.?

More managers use their coaching skills today than ever before. However, most managers default to typical management activities instead of coaching. Ray Smith said, “To create a high-performance team, we must replace typical management activities like supervising, checking, monitoring, and controlling with new behaviors like coaching and communication.”

Not only is Ray Smith correct, but he also exposes a drastic shift managers must make in today’s workplace to solve one of their more significant problems: employee development and performance.

What is Coaching?

Coaching is a technique used to promote development and performance.

The first use of the term “coach” in connection with an instructor or trainer arose around 1830 in Oxford University slang for a tutor who “carried” a student through an exam. The word “coaching” thus identified a process used to transport people from where they are to where they want to be.

In the sports world, coaching came into purview through American football. In 1875, Harvard and Yale played one of the first American football games, with Yale deciding to hire a coach to organize, strategize, and motivate players. Conversely, Harvard did not and opted for a player-led team. Over the next three decades, Harvard won the annual game only four times. This caused the University to hire a coach, thus becoming how sports teams were organized around coaches.?

In the Accelerate Leadership Program , I define it as “Improving the current and future performance of others to achieve higher levels of excellence.”

Coaching is improving the current and future performance of others to achieve higher levels of excellence.

Whether the coaching comes from an external coach or a manager acting as a coach, it’s essential to remember that coaching is a results-driven pursuit. Great coaches help others achieve higher levels of excellence.

The Benefits of Coaching

Effective coaching has many benefits, but you can boil it down to five.

How to Coach Employees to Higher Levels of Performance

Contrary to popular belief, being an effective coach isn’t something you are born with. Coaching is a skill that leaders work to develop and master. It’s an essential leadership skill. There are all kinds of techniques, tools, and strategies to help you better coach your employees.?For the sake of clarity and brevity, I am going to focus on three.

1. Build a Bond of Mutual Trust

If you want to coach employees to higher levels of performance, you need relationships built on mutual trust and respect.?

The best coaches rely on relationships built on the bond of mutual trust and respect.?

You could teach a masterclass on how to do this effectively, but it involves consistency over time. You must consistently show people you care about them and share competence for people to trust you. Trust is the foundational element on which every relationship is built. It’s earned in drops, and it’s lost in buckets.?

Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets.

2. Clarify their Goals

Most managers who coach their people spend little time, energy, and effort understanding their team members’ goals or dreams. A goal is any desired outcome that wouldn’t others happen without you doing something. Without clarity around the goals or a vision of where the person wants to go, you are on the road to nowhere. It’s often as simple as asking a few great coaching questions:

• “When you think about your life and career in 5 years, what does it look like?”
• What role or job title do you aspire to?
• What skills do you need to improve to help get there?
• What is a clear objective plus completion date of something you want to achieve this year?

3. Establish a Growth Plan?and Coach Consistently

If an employee is going to achieve higher levels of performance, it’s not going to happen by accident and without growth. Leaders who provide great coaching recognize that growth starts at the end of your comfort zone.

People don't grow accidentally, they grow intentionally.

While there are different tactics, tools, and strategies you should use to stretch people outside of their comfort zone having a growth plan is esssential.? There is more than one way to plan for growth, but it’s mindblowing how many managers wait for an annual performance review to cover strengths and weaknesses of their team members.??

If you are interested in a?Leadership Growth Plan, sign up to be the first to test it out .?

Once you have a plan, the consistency of your coaching is most important. Using your coaching skills to help someone occasionally doesn't change them permanently. A daily discipline to coaching others to higher levels of performance is required.

Closing

Coaching matters regardless of whether it’s good or bad.? The hard part is, you can do everything right as a coach but it doesn’t guarantee higher levels of performance because you can’t claim the change for anyone else.?

However, take solace in knowing that great coaching doesn’t guarantee positive results, but a lack of coaching guarantees poor results.?

Coaching for Success: How to Elevate Employee Performance: Want to learn the proven techniques and tools to coach employees to higher levels of performance and growth?? Register for the Free Webinar Today.? Limited spots available.?

Leadership Growth Plan: Do you suffer from low employee engagement and retention.? Do you feel overwhelmed as a managers trying to develop your people???Check out the new Leadership Growth Plan Tool. Sign Up to to be the first to test it out.?

Leadership Communication Cadence Template: Are you responsible for having consistence cadence with a team.? You can download the Communication Cadence Tool Here.

Accelerate Leadership System Looking to turn your managers into highly effective leaders? Instead of having high expectations, now is the time to also provide a high level of support. Leverage the Accelerate Leadership System for managers in your organization. Learn more here.

About the Author: John Eades is the CEO of LearnLoft and the creator of the Accelerate Leadership System . He was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices. John is also the author of Building the Best: 8 Proven Leadership Principles to Elevate Others to Success . You can follow him on Instagram @johngeades .