Coaching Skills for Leaders And How to Overcome the Obstacles

Applying coaching skills as a leader is one of the best ways to develop people and boost employee engagement. And in fact, many leaders have attended "coaching skills for leaders" or "manager as a coach" trainings. Why then, we might ask, is not everyone in every organisation fully engaged, yet. Is coaching not working, after all?We are convinced coaching does work, but there are factors that keep leaders from applying them.What is coaching?Coaching should not be seen as a remedy to fix underperformance. Coaching is not about telling people hat to do. According to Sir Joh Whitmore, "Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them."A simple recipe for applying coaching skills at work: tell less, listen more, ask powerful questions — and all this on a foundations of trust-based relationships.Tell less: Leaders can’t have all the answers; instead, they need to utilise the collective intelligence of the people.Listen more: Listening is more powerful than most people think. Who people feel listened to, they feel taken seriously as a person, and this in itself can boost motivation.Ask powerful questions: Asking triggers thinking, taps into a person’s own intelligence and leverages potential. It can create buy-in and build self-leadership. Good questions are open and often start with "how" or "why." They encourage solution-focused thinking rather than analysing problems. Trust: Coaching is not a mechanical process. The relationship between coach and coachee is as important as a the “technique”. Without trust, coaching won’t work. Seeing the other person full of potential  removes the obstacles that keep them for utilising their potential.Not every situation at work calls for coaching though. Coaching is for longer-term development, and also depends on a persons "readiness."Leaders can apply coaching skills informally during 1:1 interactions or team meetings, or in a more formal coaching setting.It is paramount for leaders to invest the time necessary for coaching to work. This can be challenging because while coaching is important, it rarely ever becomes urgent.Lastly, there is no shortcut to mastery in using coaching skills for leaders. You can't become perfect without passing the beginner stage during which you need to live with making mistakes and learning from them. Reflection Questions for Leaders:Suppose a miracle happened overnight, and all these obstacles that prevent you from using more coaching at work are removed. How will you start discovering that the miracle actually happened?  And after that then, what will you be doing then that you are not doing now?On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you today that your team members are capable to deliver outstanding work? Now, suppose you fully believed that your team members are truly full of potential. How would you then interact differently with them? How satisfied are you with the proportion of time that you spend as a leader in the urgent but not important quadrant versus the not urgent but important quadrant?More info about us and our work is also on our website secondcrackleadership.comDo you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions for us? Would you like to explore how we can help you to drive results in your organisations through a company-wide initiative or individual executive coaching? Then email us at hello@secondcrackleadership.com.To connect with us on LinkedIn:Martin AldergårdGerrit Pelzer