How to develop a mindset of a coaching leader?

What do you need to do to be a great manager? Is professional knowledge enough? Is managerial experience the thing that will make a difference?

In today's agile and fast-changing world, managers are expected to be more than a professional authority. They are expected to inspire and help their people grow.

Developing the mindset of a coach or a coaching leader is fundamental to your ability to lead better and will help you become a great manager. Great managers can become a company's competitive advantage and if one has a great manager. And because what happens at work has a great deal of impact on how we feel on our every day, having a great manager can truely improve one's life.

Google conducted decade-long research on what makes some managers better than others and the number one behaviour that makes a manager successful is that s/he is ‘a good coach’. The behaviour that follows in second place is 'empowers the team and does not micromanage'.

If you look at why people quit their job, you'll see that, at least according to this research, employees leave because their boss does not help them grow.

Shifting the mindset from 'boss' to 'coach' can drive higher employee engagement according to a Gallup survey, so now it is up to us to embrace it and educate managers accordingly.

The expectation is not that managers will be certified coaches but I suggest managers adopt a coaching mindset, and to be more specific adopt a coaching mindset in the right situations.

The benefits of adopting the mindset of a coaching leader have the potential to increase engagement and tenure, as well as improve productivity.

At the core of it, you need to learn how to ask questions that will help your employee discover their solutions and create a new path for them, now and in the future.

Here are some tips on how to shift your approach from teaching and telling to solution-focused coaching.

1. Shift your focus from command and control towards giving support - Give guidance and not instructions. The purpose of management has somewhat changed and so are the expectations of your employees. Managers need to adapt and build their coaching muscle so they can move from trying to control their team to empowering them and building trust. As a manager, accept the fact that you don't have all the answers and instead try to see what support and guidance you can give your team to find these answers.
2. Be a situational coach - Sometimes it's okay to be directive, telling and mentoring is part of a manager's job. There is still room for teaching as a way to develop your employees. You can still share your experience and knowledge and when there is an urgency and you know what needs to be done, you are expected to lead the way. The important thing is to find the balance between being directive and being non-directive. Think of it this way, if you are being directive all the time, most of the energy is pulled out of you. That will be exhausting for you and frustrating for your team. Creating a balance between the directive and non-directive coaching approach, based on each situation, is critical.
3. Ask forward-looking questions - Good questions can focus on why something happened in order to understand better the next steps but great coaching questions are forward-looking. These are powerful questions that can focus on clarifying the objectives, understanding the importance of an issue and how you can help. Forward-looking questions are those that will help with planning and with actions. Achievable next steps and questions help your employee move forward in the right direction
4. Recognise the fact that 'I just don't have time to coach' is an excuse - Instead of relying on your authority and professional expertise, shift your focus and listen better to your team, understand what their issue is and what it is that they are trying to achieve. You should recognise that completing a task is only one of your goals, the other goal is to help them grow and be independent in their job.
5. Help your employees uncover their goals and motivate them to get there - There is always a gap between our goals and our reality, as a manager coach you can help them find ways to bridge that gap and motivate them towards a new reality for them and your team. Understand their goals, discuss them with your employees in your weekly or monthly check-ins, uncover with them the areas they need to work on, help them with a reflection of their reality, make sure they know you believe they can achieve their goals and help them with actionable steps they should take to get there.
6. Develop your coaching skills - You don't need to take a coaching certification course to build new skills. But skills such as asking questions, listening, empathy, focusing on strengths and providing positive feedback, open communication, identifying stretch goals, all of those are examples of some important skills successful coaches and managers have. You can read about it, you can watch videos, but make sure you practice these skills, adjust and improve over time.
7. You’re not as good as you think – This study shows that managers tend to overestimate their coaching skills and finds significant gaps between how they rank themselves and how others ranked them. Most likely, we are like those managers in this survey. It means we need to do a couple of things - the first is to continuously work on our self-awareness and be mindful of how we say and do things. The second is to ask for feedback, questions like: "was this session helpful?" or "what are you taking from this meeting?" could help you assess if you made an impact. We all can and need to further develop. Understand your areas of development and work on it.
8. Be genuine, be authentic - It's important that you coach your employees not because you have to but because you want to help them grow and develop and because you want them to be successful. There is a lot to be said about this, but suffice to say that if you are not being genuine in your communication with your employees, if they feel you are inauthentic and do not have their best interest in mind, you will most likely find it very difficult to build trust and to coach them. To be successful, make sure you come with good intent, focus on their path and make sure your mind is present in the conversation so you can listen, ask great questions and help them work on their future actions.

Developing and improving your mindset isn't going to happen overnight. But start with small steps and stretch your leadership style so your team can achieve more and be more engaged. Happier and more satisfied employees who find meaning in what they do can make our working world a better place.

These are my thoughts on this topic. I'll be happy to hear yours.

Disclaimer: Statements, facts and opinions expressed in this article are solely my own and not a formal position of any organisation mentioned in it or an organisation I am associated with.