Here's How to Start Coaching Your Team
One of our favorite leadership books, Great Leadership Creates Great Workplaces, offers the following:
“If you want to be great at anything, whether it’s playing bridge, playing the piano, playing sports, or being a leader, sustained effort, deliberate practice, and good coaching are required.”
And research backs up the effectiveness of coaching. Over 70% of employees who received coaching saw an increase in work performance, relationships, and communication skills, and 80% reported having more self-confidence.*
At a leadership event we held recently, The Leadership Challenge® co-author Jim Kouzes gave us some valuable coaching and practice tips that HR professionals and managers (or manager-coaches!) can use to help develop the leadership capabilities on their teams:
Be a Coach by Using these coaching tips with each leader on your team:
Coaching Tip #1. Encourage leaders to start their day with this mantra: “Today I will make a positive difference in the lives of the people I lead.”
Coaching Tip #2. Ask leaders: “What’s the next step you can take as a leader that will stretch you?”
Coaching Tip #3. Connect leaders with someone who is an expert and can provide an example of leading effectively and show them by example how to lead.
Coaching Tip #4. Identify a mentor or trusted advisor as a “stable relationship” throughout the development of the leader.
Coaching Tip #5. At the end of each day suggest that a leader ask and record “what did I do today to improve so I am a better leader than yesterday?”
Leadership development continues to lead the list in workplace trends. Millennials, in particular, want and seek out coaching as a valuable professional support. If you want to learn a more specific step-by-step process, we recommend the Coaching Clinic's 5 step coaching conversation process. To maximize leadership potential on your team, learn more about our coaching options.
*http://www.outstand.org/index.php/2013/03/the-benefits-of-coaching/
