What are your people looking for in a leader today?
Optimism in the face of great difficulty? Yes.
Clarity of vision even when things seem muddled? Yes.
A passionate interest in engagement and well-being? Yes.
You’ll need to work on the first two, but we can help with the third. Coaching employees increases engagement and lifts a sense of well-being.
A positive trend in this decade is the rise of the coaching leader. This is the leader who shows that they care by not directing their people or solving all their problems. Instead, they coach to bring forth ideas and actions from their directs so they can confidently learn and grow in their roles.
You already know that people are generally more motivated to follow through on an idea when they’ve generated it. Furthermore, people can solve problems much more readily than they might initially let on. The pandemic revealed this to be true by presenting an unprecedented stream of problems both professional and personal that needed to be solved in short order.
This is an ideal time to lean into that new understanding and be less directive
as a leader. Take the time to sit down and really talk with a direct. Ask questions for which you do not have the answers. Explore and discover new solutions and ideas to pressing problems together.
The questions that work in these coaching conversations are often open-ended and curious. 
“What do you think?”
“What ideas do you have?”
“What does this situation remind you of and how did you solve that?”
“Who do you think could help with this?”
“What are one or two actions you could take right away?”
“What’s your next step?”
What’s in it for the leader to spend extra time having these discovery conversations with directs on a regular basis? Engagement. Retention. A greater sense of well-being (when I uncover solutions and ideas from within and that comes about because my leader shows their faith in me, I feel better about myself). Also, the opportunity to find a successor.
When leaders are directive, how do they truly know the capabilities of their reports? People will rise to the occasion when given a chance to do so and this is what coaching boils down to. A faith in a person to come up with their own solutions to difficult challenges.
For the leader who wants to coach, a few best practices:
- Let the other person know that you would like to be less directive and have more discovery conversations in a coaching format.
- Use questions for which you do not know the answers. This will prevent any leading or bias on your part to enter into the conversation.
- Have a genuine belief in each person and their inherent talents and capabilities and bring that faith to the conversation.
- Establish a rhythm for these conversations and expect to have them a few times a month with each report. Give these talks about 30 minutes.
- You can also focus on the career development of your people versus talking about challenges and solutions. This angle also lifts engagement and a sense of well-being.
- Only ask one question at a time.
- Journal your reflections upon these conversations to discover your own ability to lead differently.
- Get trained to coach.
In summation, if you would like to see your engagement and well-being numbers rise in your organization, consider the power of coaching to influence these metrics positively.
Want to increase your skill set even further? These 3 proven models for coaching professionals will help you, read about them here.
If you really want to be a coaching leader and even introduce a culture of coaching into your organization, then seriously consider getting trained. We have trained numerous leaders through our Distance Learning and Virtual Seminars. You will increase your skillset as a leader and increase the impact you have on the people you lead.
Here are other articles and videos related to this article:
Articles:
- Why Leaders Should Be More Like Coaches
- A sure sign of the impact of coaching
- Why coaching is so powerful
- Coaching Professionals Share 10 of their Best Coaching Ideas
YouTube Videos:
- Intro to Becoming an Executive Coach
- The Difference Between a Coaching Session, a Conversation, and an Interview!
- How Do You Know if it’s a Coaching Conversation?
- Coach Training Video
Photo copyright: Featured photo is from ©fauxels via Pexels. Second photo is from ©Tima Miroshnichenko via Pexels.
