Becoming a Better Coach

What does it mean to be a great leader? For many, the first thing that comes to mind is being a great manager: keeping projects on track, ensuring deadlines are met, and solving problems quickly. But good leadership goes beyond just management of teams—great leaders are also great coaches. The benefits of solid coaching are significant on both sides of the equation; coachees often feel more engaged and empowered, and coaches benefit from having more motivated and productive teams.

Recently, I had the pleasure of hosting our tenth Virtual Meeting of the Novarica Women’s Network on the topic of becoming a better coach. Our panelists, Electric Insurance Lead Quality Assurance Katie Wendling, COUNTRY Financial Manager Mary Jones, Pinnacol Assurance Director Dani Baresel-Pavlik, and Novarica EVP Martina Conlon shared their thoughts on the importance of coaching as well as their best coaching strategies.

Some key takeaways from the discussion included:

Coaching is a distinct endeavor from management and requires a different skill set.

While management often involves giving specific directions, solutioning, and closely governing a team, coaching is about encouraging open two-way communication, teaching coachees how to solve problems independently, and acting as a supporter rather than supervisor of their team’s success. Traditionally, managers tend to be more focused on ensuring team members meet certain KPIs; coaches, on the other hand, tend to prioritize empowering coachees to reach their own self-defined goals. Unlike managing, coaching requires learning to let your team find their strength and, over time, develop the ability to manage their own success.

To be a good coach, you need to first be a good listener.

Coaching can feel at odds with traditional definitions of leadership. Instead of the supervisor giving directions or setting the agenda for each interaction, conversations between coaches and coachees must be led by the coachee. In order to get a sense of a coachee’s professional goals, challenges they’re facing, and recent successes they’ve had, coaches can encourage a coachee to share by asking open-ended questions. What have been the highlights and lowlights of your week? Are you facing any roadblocks this week? What are your goals for the upcoming year? What skills would you like to build here? These coaching questions help with a coachee’s self-reflection and help spark their sense of accountability, effectiveness, and ownership in the workplace.

As a coach, hold back from solving problems for your coachees—focus on encouraging development of their own critical thinking skills.

When a coachee comes to you with a challenge they’re facing in the workplace, keep the focus of the exchange on them. Try asking probing questions to encourage your coachee to think about the problem more deeply or in a different way. What options have you explored so far? What brings you to that conclusion? Why do you think your current approach hasn’t worked yet? How can you break this task down into more manageable mini tasks? Asking these questions gives your coachee the room to grow and build up their problem-solving skill set. By refraining from micromanagement or knee-jerk solutioning, you are allowing your coachee the freedom to explore outside of their comfort zone and reach their full potential.

The next Novarica Women’s Network Virtual Meeting will take place on February 24, 2021, at 11AM ET on the topic of “Adapting to a Hybrid Future.” Speakers include Novarica’s Vice President of Research and Consulting Nancy Casbarro. More information is available at https://novarica.com/womensnetwork.

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