Five Elements to be a Coaching Leader

Leaders are often advised to "coach" team members. The advice usually means supporting, developing, and helping. As simple as the role sounds, many leaders struggle to be "coaching leaders." Perhaps it's due to some confusion as to what coaching means in the business sense.
 
The field of coaching has grown tremendously over the past two decades. As of this writing, there is no license or credential required to hang a shingle as a coach. Many individuals call themselves coaches based solely on experience as HR professionals, consultants or therapists. True coaching, however, differs from all of these professions.
 
Being an effective "coaching leader" requires an understanding of the elements of coaching. Here are five that are key:

Coaching leaders enable employees to be their best

Coaching is a partnership
Effective coaching requires two parties, committed to the process and willing to work toward the coachee’s goals. If an individual is “sent to coaching,” he or she may not be very engaged. Likewise, a leader cannot partner with an individual that he or she has already written off. If either the coach or the coachee is not fully invested in the process, up through and including sustained change, the coaching will fail.

Coaching does not involve giving advice
Unlike a consultant or a mentor, a coach rarely offers advice. The coach’s job is to support the coachee’s self-discovery, helping to identify what will work best for the coachee. Therein lies the magic of coaching. Think about a time that someone (especially a spouse) told you how you could change for the better. Now consider a change you identified and committed to. Which situation had the better outcome?

Coaching depends on active listening
Listening is one of the most powerful gifts that a human can give another, and it’s especially meaningful when delivered by an employee’s leader.  In this time-crazed world, it’s difficult to find someone with the capacity to really listen. Active listening means giving full time and attention to another (no phone calls, emails or distractions of any kind.) It involves hearing more than words – tone, pace and body language can yield tremendous information, sometimes revealing what the spoken word attempts to hide.

Coaching relies on curiosity
It’s difficult to be curious when you know all the answers. Good coaches ask a lot of questions. These questions aren’t informational – who, what or when. Instead, they are expansive – how, what if, (and carefully), why. Expansive questions enable deep thinking. "Why" should be used sparingly, though, since it can sometimes evoke defensiveness.

Coaching is future-focused
Because the art of coaching involves supporting discovery, it isn’t useful to focus on the past. Unlike therapy, which addresses old wounds to promote healing, coaching is solely about creating new futures. On rare occasion, a coach may tap into a coachee’s past success to call out a useful strength. But there is no place for examining old hurts or dwelling on failures.

Becoming a coaching leader involves understanding exactly what coaching means. Armed with this knowledge, a leader can become a valuable partner for an employee’s journey of self-discovery and true sustained improvement.

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Build Your Strategic Muscle

As a leader, you may be coached to “be more strategic.” This advice, while well intentioned, is difficult to follow. According to Lominger, a globally recognized expert in leadership development, strategic agility – the ability to think strategically – is a critical leadership competency, but one in which many leaders are lacking. It is also among the most difficult to develop.

Many leaders are puzzled when told to "be more strategic."

Given the challenge to fulfill the “be more strategic” goal, what options do leaders have to build strategic muscle? Gaining an understanding of the meaning of the word strategic may be a good place to start.

Being strategic means “identifying long-term or overall aims and interests and the means of achieving them.” Leaders attempting to build strategic muscle should focus on a key phrase in this definition: long-term. Thinking versus doing, planning versus executing, and looking broadly versus focusing narrowly all support a long view. As such, they are important elements in the formula to be more strategic.

Many leaders attained their positions through stellar performance as individual contributors. With a wonderful ability to execute and the stellar results that followed, these lucky folks were rewarded with a promotion to a leadership role. Small wonder that these great “doers” struggle to be more strategic!

Building strategic muscle is similar to any muscle-building program. It takes time, practice and patience. Here are three strategic muscle-building exercises that a leader desiring to be more strategic should first take when faced with a challenge, project or problem. There is no time limit on completing these steps. In fact, if the situation allows, spacing them out over several hours or even a few days will be most helpful.

Look long:  Ask, “What would success look like?” Write down the first five things that come to mind. Avoid any tendency to filter the results.

Inject creativity: Consider the most unusual, unorthodox or untested actions that might help to achieve the outcomes you’ve just identified. Avoid the temptation to eliminate any actions due to budgetary, technical or personnel constraints. List everything that comes to mind, aiming for at least five creative actions.

Scan broadly: Identify every stakeholder – this means anyone who is impacted (positively or negatively) by the challenge, project or problem. Then, select at least three individuals from different backgrounds and interest groups and discuss the challenge, project or problem (obviously staying within the bounds of confidentiality, if the matter is sensitive.)

These exercises accomplish two purposes: First, the leader cannot immediately jump in to tackle the matter, wearing his or her tried and true “Super-Executor” cape. The natural pause of thinking time causes the leader to approach the situation in a much broader manner. Secondly, the process of exploring creatively and fully (especially with input of others) can open one’s mind to new ideas or different ways of addressing the challenge at hand.

Building strategic muscle is a challenge for any leader, especially those who have built their reputations on quick execution. Leaders can successfully meet the challenge through purposeful and diligent exercises targeted on developing strategic capacity.

 Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net