It’s common for new managers to struggle with the coaching aspect of their role. After all, it’s a new skill set — a more advanced skill set. You don’t walk out on Friday as a contributor and come in the following Monday equipped with the ability to navigate an entirely different role.
What still surprises me, though it perhaps shouldn’t, is how many experienced managers either don’t coach or acknowledge that they don’t understand how to coach. Yet, when you ask them if they would like to be good at coaching their team members, the answer is almost a resounding “Yes!” They also admit to wanting to receive more coaching from their direct manager.
Here’s some guidance for every manager motivated to strengthen as a coach for their team members.
Shine a spotlight on the need for coaching in the work environment
I encourage managers to normalize the idea of coaching and feedback with their groups. This is an essential part of working with your group to define the rules for success.
Discuss with your team members what coaching entails, why it’s essential and how it appears and sounds.
Establish the expectation that coaching is part of your role and something everyone in the group is responsible for, both on the receiving and giving ends. On high-performance teams, feedback and coaching flow in all directions.
Focus on the coaching trilogy with your team members
1. Amplifying strengths
As a manager, you are uniquely positioned to observe your team members in action. Pay attention to where and when they thrive. What type of work are they involved in at that time? What role are they playing? What abilities are they drawing upon? Then, talk with them about what you observed.
Your observations offer rich content for identifying and exploring other related or even more challenging opportunities that draw upon those skills. Your focus on helping individuals amplify their strengths in pursuit of activities important to the organization leads to increased enjoyment and engagement and supports your quest for great results.
2. Mitigating weaknesses
It is NOT your responsibility as a manager to fix anyone, nor are you the anointed critic-in-chief. Nonetheless, we all have weaknesses, and with careful observation, you will uncover where individuals struggle and need additional coaching and support to strengthen their support in pursuit of stronger personal and business performance. Much of this coaching is in the zip code of feedback — the constructive kind.
I teach managers a simple acronym, B.I.T.E-Qf, to reference when designing and engaging in constructive feedback discussions. The acronym stands for:
B = Observed behavior
I = Impact of observed behavior on personal or group performance
T = Ask and answer: What’s the right time to deliver this feedback?
E = Right approach to Empathy for the situation
Qf = Question you will ask to shift the focus from the past to the future
These five elements are the building blocks of quality feedback, and while each is easy to understand, putting them together into a quality, beneficial-for-all dialogue demands practice.
A starter approach is to jot these down in your professional journal — you keep one, don’t you? — and pre-plan but not script your discussion openers. The last one, the question to shift the discussion to the future, is the dialogue generator. For example, when chatting with a team member who is dissatisfied with the results she gained from a recent initiative, consider: “I can tell you aren’t happy with the outcomes of your project. What might you do differently in future projects to improve the results?”
Not only are you prompting the proper discussion, but you are also offering the individual agency to suggest what they might want to do differently to improve. Of course, at that point, you can emphasize their ideas and add something they might not have thought of.
3. Exploring next-level behaviors and skills
It is essential to distinguish between weaknesses and next-level skill sets or behaviors. The former are typically correctable actions or behaviors, while the latter involve developing new skills and mental muscles. For example, eliminating the filler words and the Ahs and Ums from your speech pattern is working on a weakness. Cultivating your executive presence — your gravitas in front of senior executives is a next-level skill set. Strengthening strategic and critical thinking and learning to lead at scale across functions are also next-level skill sets.
Part of your role as manager and coach is to tune in to your employees’ career interests or aspirations. (Julie Winkle Giulioni’s Multi-Dimensional Career Model outlined in her book “Promotions are So Yesterday” is an excellent tool to support this work.) It’s easier, once you have those insights and ideas on their potential career steps, to narrow down the next-level skills and behaviors. Training, job rotation, mentoring and coaching are all essential elements you can bring to bear to support their growth in these areas.
Beware of imposing unwanted coaching help
One of the challenges I navigated earlier in my career was tempering my enthusiasm for someone’s potential in a particular area with their lack of interest or different ideas. I found myself imposing help where it wasn’t wanted.
Amplifying their strengths, particularly through positive feedback and exploring additional assignments, is great. Helping them identify and fine-tune to mitigate weaknesses is equally important.
However, be sensitive to imposing unwanted help when exploring next-level behaviors and skill sets. Not everyone is as excited as you are about taking on something new or bigger. Great coaches understand the need to temper and tailor their approaches in the best interests of their team members.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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