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New trend: On-the-job coaching is vital
"You know you need to coach your staff. If they perform well, you perform well. And, if you
aren't currently measured on your "ability to coach and develop others" — that is likely to
change soon," says Candice Frankovelgia, Center for Creative Leadership.
Coaching from an outside expert continues to be important. Increasingly, organizations are looking at on-the-job coaching as a vital tool for developing talent and meeting performance goals. The manager plays the key role.
"Leaders are being held accountable for developing others, but few are taught effective ways to coach," says CCL's Candice Frankovelgia. "They end up giving reviews, meeting occasionally and giving advice. We've been helping leader coaches understand what they need to do to be an effective coach and boiling it down to specific actions."
Whether you are a professional coach or a leader with coaching responsibilities you need to establish the relationship; incorporate assessment, challenge and support; and push for results. To gauge your effectiveness in each of these areas, consider the following competencies:
To create an effective coaching relationship, you need to, among other things:
- Be clear about learning and development objectives.
- Show good judgment about which information to share and which to hold private.
- Be clear about the impact of your own behavior on employees.
- Be patient.
- Show integrity.
- Follow through on promises or agreements.
- Continually show that you have employees' best interests in mind.
Assessment. Do you skillfully help others to gain self-awareness and insight? If so, the actions you take will include the following:
- Provide timely feedback.
- Explore the gap between current performance and desired performance.
- Help employees discover situations where their impact is different from their intentions.
- Help gain clarity about the behaviors that employees would like to change.
- Note inconsistencies between words and actions.
Challenge. Do you effectively challenge the thinking and assumptions of others? Do you encourage them to practice new behaviors and step outside of their comfort zone? As a coach, you might challenge employees by:
- Helping them explore the unintended consequences of a potential action.
- Encouraging them to generate alternative solutions to problems.
- Asking open-ended questions.
- Helping them understand the consequences of not changing key behaviors.
- Encouraging them to take reasonable risks.
Support. How well do you listen? Are you able to understand the coachee's perspective and find ways to engage him or her in the coaching and development process - even through difficulty? Support comes in many forms, including:
- Listening carefully to the ideas and suggestions of others.
- Being open to the perspectives of others.
- Allowing employees to vent emotions without judgment.
- Encouraging employees to make progress toward their goals.
- Recognizing the success of employees.
Results. Do you help the coachee set meaningful goals and be accountable for them? If so, you are likely to help employees identify:
- Goals that will have the greatest positive impact on their effectiveness.
- Specific behaviors that will lead to achieving their goals.
- Specific metrics and milestones that employees can use to measure progress toward their goals.
"Once you have the tools and some practice under your belt, you will find that coaching is an effective way to develop and motivate direct reports," says Frankovelgia.
About the source
Candice Frankovelgia, Psy.D is Senior Faculty and Coaching Practice Leader and has been with the Center for Creative Leadership® since 1996. With a background in both business and behavioral science, Candice integrates these disciplines to design and deliver tailored programs for individual, team and organizational development. Candice co-authored chapters on Coaching in the Center's Handbook of Coaching: A Guide for The Leader Coach (Jossey-Bass, March 2006) and Handbook of Leadership Development (Jossey-Bass, March 2009) and serves as team coach for senior executive teams in Fortune 500 companies.
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Read more:
www.ccl.org
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