Managers as Performance Coaches

 “Coaching is about connecting with people, inspiring them to do their best and helping them to grow. It’s also about challenging people to come up with the answers they require on their own.”  Ed Batista

As an HR consultant and coach, the most common request for service, more than any other, has been resolving performance problems. Most employees do a good job and are very skilled and consistent performers. However, there are times when employees are not doing well in their work and its important to understand what may be the cause.

Business today is competitive. Managers and Leaders have to get the best out of the people who work for them. Managers do not always have the time or the skills to coach and manage employees through performance problems which then inevitably ends up with HR. Even though HR has the skills to manage performance issues, it’s not sustainable or business sense for them to take responsibility over the long term for these challenges. Managing performance is a line manager responsibility.

Managers resist performance management and coaching for various reasons. One of these reasons is that they wish to avoid the perceived conflict that comes with having to address performance issues. Conflict is not something we generally embrace and many people steer away from it since plainly – its uncomfortable, causes anxiety and further frustration and sometimes results in aggressive interaction because both parties feel they need to defend their position. 

Managers that have been coached themselves to be aware and understand their own emotions and thoughts related to a potential conflict situation will be more comfortable and experience less anxiety around addressing performance issues. They will most probably also be a better coach to their employees.

Performance coaching is an action-oriented form of coaching with the focus on the learner. It involves listening and understanding, but also putting plans in place for change and addressing those areas of concern for the employee.

Regular and continuous feedback is performance coaching and provides employees with enough information to understand where they are on goals, why they are required to do what they are doing and how it will contribute to the overall business direction. Employees can think for themselves, however they require the guidance and direction to take the right steps in the right direction. This form of regular communication creates a sense of involvement, being valued and serves as motivation to employees which turns into higher levels of employee engagement.

Coaching is not a new management tool, it has been around for a long time now. The value of coaching may need to be understood by managers in order for them to integrate it as part of employee performance management. Once they have experienced the powerful results of being coached on their career, management style, personal growth and life they will be a lot more eager to utilise coaching when dealing with their own employees on a daily basis.

The manager as a performance coach is greatly undervalued and is not a negotiable managerial skill any longer. Organisations should ensure that they provide leaders and managers with coaching skills as a competency prior to being promoted into such roles and allow them to experience the value first hand as part of their own learning and development.

“There are managers who coach and managers who don’t. Leaders in the latter category are not necessarily bad managers, but they are neglecting an effective tool to develop talent.”  Joseph R. Weintraub and James M. Hunt