There are many styles of leadership, and different situations require different styles. One of them is the Coaching Style.
A coaching leadership style is proving to be much more effective with today’s employees than the old-fashioned authoritarian styles that many business leaders used to operate under.
Leaders who coach employees instead of commanding them are able to build a much more talented and agile workforce, which leads to a healthy and growing business.
Therefore coaching is central to improving the performance of entire teams.
So how does coaching help?
Utilizing coaching within a leadership role will allow you to be more effective in motivating your team and connecting with them on a deeper level. It will also help you to develop trust among team members.
If you want to create an empowered team, a coaching style is effective and one that you will find you use frequently.
There are so many benefits of this style of leadership, including:
- It will strengthen the bond between you and your team members
- Your support will encourage your team to continuously develop their skills
- The training they get will boost performance levels and will help your team to reach their potential.
- It feels satisfying for you as a leader!
Are you really coaching your team?
Many leaders consider themselves good coaches, how hard can it be?
But many leaders get this wrong and there are some common mistakes.
For example, you want your team to learn for themselves and decide on the best approach in solving a problem without hand holding.
So you ask an open question, expecting your team to go and figure out the answer.
A common mistake is to then give the solution (in terms of a leading question), when they do not come back with anything.
So, something like “one option is to do it this way, what about that?”
What you will then find is your team will simply follow your instructions, and come back to you saying things like “I did it as you said”.
You can see the problem – you may think you are coaching them to come to their own conclusion but really you are providing it.
The mistake is to use the wrong type of question when your team member can’t immediately find the solution.
How to improve your coaching skills
Coaching a team takes practice, the right, open mindset, patience and trust, and a commitment to persevere with a coaching style when the answers aren’t obvious.
One way to develop this quickly and effectively is to work with a coach yourself.
A leadership coach will see what you can’t. They can help you identify the skills to be developed, identify your key strengths, and strategies for improvement.
Working with a coach can help you focus on achieving goals within your team and find solutions.
This is one of things I can help with. If you have not worked with a coach before then I am happy to have a discovery call with you, by booking a call through the “book a call button” on the main menu.