The Leader as a Coach

• Coaching
• Foundation Degree

What motivates you in the work place and improves your performance?

Now, imagine you are a leader of this group of individuals; how would you go about ensuring this team remains motivated?

What other tools are available to leaders in the workplace that help improve performance?

Motivating team members might include...

• job enjoyment and interesting work – research suggests that this is the most important factor for the majority of workers
  

• a good basic salary and pension plan – stability and long-term security are valued highly

• good working relationships – with fellow team members, managers and other colleagues

• full appreciation and recognition – from a simple thank you to a formal scheme that rewards innovation and commitment

• fair treatment – clear command structures and procedures with regular feedback and support, especially in times of difficulty

• higher levels of autonomy – the ability to take responsibility and make decisions

• the opportunity to innovate – having ideas and suggestions taken seriously

• financial performance bonus – not as attractive and important as we would expect

Research

Research and the three motivation theories studied show that fear and money are not good motivational factors. 

They might work in the short term, but the same repeated criticism or threat can have a negative impact. If people are unhappy in their work, extra money will soon become less attractive – especially if the individual can move to another employer or department where they will enjoy interesting work in a positive working environment.

The Leader as a Coach

The Leader as a Coach

Contents

• The Difference between Mentoring & Coaching
  
• What are the benefits of coaching?
• Coaching skills
• Who can coach?
• GROW
• Some coaching questions

What is mentoring?

What is coaching?

What do you think are the benefits of coaching?

There are differences between training and coaching. Generally speaking, training is driven by the trainer who controls the process and the content of the sessions. It focuses on learning and often takes place in groups. Training is useful when team leaders and managers need to teach specific

skills or knowledge.

Coaching, on the other hand, is a two-way process where the team member takes an active part

and the coach acts as a facilitator. It focuses on development and is usually done on a one-to-one

basis, although it can be used for small groups or teams.

In this section, we will look at:

• the benefits of coaching

• coaching techniques and models

• the manager’s coaching skills

• how coaching can be used to improve performance in the workplace

What skills do you think a coach needs?

An effective coach ideally should be a trained individual who will need to have belief in their own abilities and belief in the individual they are coaching, being motivated to make a difference. They must have strong interpersonal skills to establish trust and develop rapport with that individual, who may be different from themselves i.e. on a cultural or social level and have different experiences to them. To be effective they will be required to possess the knowledge and flexibility to adapt their approach, style and body language.

Knowledge of body language techniques is vital to become an effective coach. Albert Mehrabian supports this in his studies based on the most important factors in communication. His studies became famous for highlighting the importance of non–verbal ques in communication. He stated that when conveying and understanding a message we focus on words (7%), vocal aspects (38%) and most importantly on body language,55% of the time (Pease A & Pease B, 2004).

Knowledge of body language techniques is also important as this can be used to develop rapport. This is based on the principle ‘that people like people who are most like themselves’. Rapport can be used to establish good relationships with clients, organisational stakeholders and to also make the individual feel at ease.

Additionally, rapport building technique may be used more at an unconscious level i.e. through the use of mirroring or matching techniques. An effective coach should have the skill to use this knowledge to test the level of rapport with the client and/or key stakeholders.

Who can coach?

Share one thing you took from this video.

Peer coaching

Peer Coaching is about the exchange of experiences between colleagues from the same or different departments. 

Example:

Project managers of various departments schedule a regular peer coaching meeting in which the present recent challenges or difficulties and receive feedback from their project manage colleagues.

Direct-line manager coaching

Coaching by the direct-line manager serves to build up new competencies. The employee is supported by the manager through joint discussion and reflection on day-to-day situations and challenges. Through the mutual reflection, new things are learned, one’s own perception is questioned and one’s own role is actively deliberated.

The first stage is the ‘Goal’ stage. This starts the relationship with the coach and client defining the key goals or objectives which the client wants to focus on. It is important here that the client sets their own goals to encourage them to take ownership of those goals.

The second stage is ‘Reality’ which is where the client identifies what the current situation is which they would like to change. This stage can be insightful for the client and may uncover areas to explore further which had not be identified by the conscious mind. At this stage an effective coach should have gained an understanding of the client’s perspective and challenged them where appropriate on information they may have distorted, deleted or generalised. Effective questioning techniques should be used here whether it be closed, open, rhetorical or probing questions. The use of re-framing and chunking up or chunking down techniques may also be applied here.

The third stage is ‘options’, where the client will start to consider the different options available to them. At this stage the client may have subconsciously been aware of solutions available to them and will now begin to explore these. It is the role of the coach to explore with the client the feasibility of each option.

Finally, ‘Will’ focuses on the next stages and how the client will ensure they can begin to work towards their desired objective(s). ‘Will’ also assesses the client’s ability to want to make the change. At this stage the coach and client should work together to identify SMART goals to achieve. This provides direction and enables the client to assess their progress. It is also important to identify obstacles and strategies to overcome these so that the client has an increased chance of sustained improvement (Dembkowski, Eldridge and Hunter, 2006, pg84).

The benefit of the GROW model according to Brockbank and McGill, is that it encourages a high level of engagement from the client, as it encourages a level of responsibility from them in owning their own goals, as well as looking at the will to achieve them (Brockbank and McGill, 2006, p138).

What questions do you think a coach
could ask? Give some examples.

Possible questions

What do you want to achieve? 

Outline your objectives (short and long term Timescales

Have you set realistic timescales to achieve these objectives? What are they?

What actions will you take?

What are some of the specific behaviours and skills that you want to work on or experience you want to gain?

What does good look like?

Describe successful outcomes? 

How will you quantify a successful outcome?  

Vincent Thomas Lombardi (June 11, 1913 – September 3, 1970) was an American football coach and executive in the National Football League (NFL). Lombardi is considered by many to be the greatest coach in football history, and he is recognized as one of the greatest coaches and leaders in the history 

Further reading?

Websites

Association for Coaching –http://www.associationforcoaching.com/media/uploads/publications/ACHGuide13-1.pdf

CIMA Mentoring and Coaching http://www.cimaglobal.com/Documents/ImportedDocuments/cid_tg_mentoring_coaching_Aug08.pdf.pdf

Coaching Supervision Academy http://coachingsupervisionacademy.com/the-seven-eyed-model-of-supervision

 http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/report-summaries/report-summary-practical-methods-evaluating-coaching

ITAA World - http://www.itaaworld.org/what-transactional-analysis

New Coaching Network – http://new.coachingnetwork.org.uk

Performance Consultants - http://www.performanceconsultants.com/grow-model

Selfawareness.org.uk - http://www.selfawareness.org.uk/news/understanding-the-johari-

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