eBOOK

10 TOP TIPS FOR THE

COACHING MANAGER

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eBOOKS

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It is a business necessity.

Just as research and development is essential in driving innovation and competitive advantage, learning and development is an essential component in developing an organisation’s greatest asset – its people.

The leader’s role in learning and development is that of a coach. Coaches do not develop people, coaches equip people with the tools, knowledge and opportunities to develop themselves and become more effective. As Socrates once said:

“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them learn.”

Done effectively, coaching brings numerous benefits to the individuals being coached, the managers as coaches, and the organisation overall.

Coaching doesn’t need to take a great deal of your time. If you invest five per cent of your energy and focus on coaching your people you will yield healthy returns.

With all of this in mind, we have created this e-book to give you ten tips to get started with your coaching journey!

DEVELOPING TALENT

IS NOT OPTIONAL

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1 CREATE A SAFE

YET CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENT

Your coachee needs to feel safe and able to engage in open two-way dialogue and express inner feelings. Importantly, they need to know they can take risks and experiment with new ways of approaching the business challenges they are facing. As the coach, it’s up to you to establish and respect appropriate boundaries, build confidence and trust, and provide a space where risk-taking is rewarded. Remember, especially if you are the coachee’s boss or manager, they may wonder if they can reveal vulnerabilities that they think could be used against them in other aspects of their job. So keep your attitude as open and as non-judgmental as possible, and let the coachee know you support them.

10 TOP TIPS FOR THE

COACHING MANAGER

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ENDEAVOUR TO

WORK WITHIN YOUR COACHEE’S AGENDA

2 Remember, this coaching session is not about you. The coachee’s world and agenda is far more important. So let the coachee decide which goals to work on, and even how to go about improving.

In an ideal world, it’s obviously great when the coachee’s own agenda aligns perfectly with the organisation’s goals, but never impose your personal priorities on the coaching relationship. When it’s clear you need to push a point, put on your managerial hat. This enables you to preserve the special collaborative coaching relationship you’re trying to build.

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Asking good questions lies at the heart of effective coaching. It’s the single most important way in which you, as the coach, can have a direct impact on guiding your coachee towards achieving behavioural change and personal goals. Through the skilful use of open questions, you can enable your coachee to feel fully engaged in the coaching conversation. Creative questions will also help your coachee to achieve greater clarity of thinking, focus their attention on critical behaviours or areas, and provide descriptive answers rather than judgmental ones. This approach promotes awareness and responsibility for using their own resources and developing their own solutions.

3ASK CHALLENGING

CREATIVE

QUESTIONS

Creative questioning will enable you to challenge your coachee to take

action, initiate change and commit to it. As their coach, asking the right

questions will help you to obtain high quality feedback that is essential

to the forward momentum of your coaching partnership.

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The ability to listen, really listen with your heart and mind, as well as your ears, is one of the hallmarks of a great coach. Listening deeply enables you as the coach to gain a greater understanding of people and situations, operate with more quality information, and minimise any potential confusion or misunderstanding. Maintain good eye contact and focus completely on your coachee. At the same time, provide space for them to talk without interruption on your part. Spend time on encouraging your coachee to expand on what they are saying, and take time to understand the situation from their perspective. Reflect back to your coachee the content of what they have said to demonstrate that you have listened, summarising to signal and check understanding. Observe the coachee’s body language to provide you with deeper insights into how the coachee might be feeling.

REALLY LISTEN

TO UNDERSTAND YOUR COACHEE 4

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5 GIVE

EFFECTIVE FEEDBACK

Coaching is a collaborative process in which the coach and the coachee are working together towards the achievement of the coachee’s goals. Giving effective feedback is a core capability in the process. Giving effective feedback will enable you as the coach to increase your coachee’s self-awareness and self-understanding, help them to grow their skills and develop new ideas and solutions, encourage them to modify their behaviour and encourage productive action, and, most importantly, enable them to enhance their level of self-confidence and sense of well-being.

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BE SURE TO

SET CLEAR GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Without clear goals, the coaching relationship can become just a forum for rambling discussions about issues and an opportunity for the coachee to let off steam. An overriding objective in the coaching process is to help the coachee to set and achieve goals that are aligned to organisational as well as their personal objectives. Setting clear goals enhances the coachee’s ability to self-manage and increases their motivation towards taking positive action to achieve specific aims, also to enhance persistence and learning. In addition, setting clear goals facilitates the self-evaluation of any progress, which is important if coaching is to make a positive and meaningful contribution to an individual’s learning and development.

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7 FACILITATE AND

COLLABORATE

Like Socrates, who always led his students with questions, the best coaches do not give direct answers or act as the expert. Focus on the coachee’s needs and avoid filling the coaching session with your own life stories and pet theories. Although you may suggest several options for responding to a problem, the ultimate choice should rest with the coachee — with you acting as the facilitator and collaborator.

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ADVOCATE

SELF AWARENESS

One of your goals as coach is to help your coachee to learn how to recognise their own strengths and limitations — a prerequisite skill for any effective leader. At the same time, you should understand how your own behaviours as a coach impact on the people around you. If you demonstrate a strong sense of awareness of yourself, you are more likely to be able to help your coachee to develop a similar level of self-awareness.

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9 PROMOTE

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE

Most people can learn, grow and change only if they have the right set of experiences and are open to learning from them. In your manager as coach role, help people to engage in assignments and other opportunities to practice and develop their skills. Help people learn the right lessons from their experiences. Help your coachee to reflect on past events, and to analyse what went well and what didn’t. If you foster experiential learning, your coachee will continue to improve and develop long after your coaching sessions end.

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ACT AS A

ROLE MODEL

Act as a role model by sharing your development goals, seeking feedback from others, and sharing what you have learned. Demonstrate to your people that you value learning and development through the rewards and opportunities that you can influence directly in your leadership role.

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info@predictive-advantage.com

+44 1423 505588

www.predictive-advantage.com

WOULD YOU

LIKE TO LEARN MORE?

Visit www.predictive-advantage.com/manager-as-coach or head to our blog where we have further insights!