Coaching – An Intro

Coaching – An intro

“Every manager must become a teacher if he wants to be really successful”.

A boss’s (leader’s) success depends on his ability to work effectively through people. Employees’ abilities to function productively depend on the support and encouragement of their superiors.

Coaching is a basic and fundamental skill required for every manager and leader. Coaching is mainly concerned with immediate improvement of performance and the development of specific job skills.

Coaching is a process used to develop employees through one-to-one communication. In the process, both the coach and employee jointly strive to identify, develop and reach performance goals.

Benefits of coaching. The more common benefits are:

·         Reduction in cost and turnover.

·         Improvement in quality and quantity of work.

·         Enhanced employee growth.

·         Improvement in employee problem-solving ability.

·         Increased likelihood of reaching the goals.

·         Improved superior/employee communication.

Excuses for not coaching. Interestingly, we fail to coach many a times and come out with excuses for not coaching. The common ones are:

·         It is a lengthy process.

·         Employees should ask, if they need help.

·         I don’t know how to coach.

·         Employees might think that I don’t trust them.

·         I have more important things to do, than coaching.

·         It is the trainer’s job to teach skills.

Change in behaviour. We have to change some of our behaviour / style of working to become successful coaches.

Change from                                      To

Directing                                             Guiding

Dictating                                             Participating

Delegating                                          Empowering

Telling                                                  Listening

Planning                                              Consulting

Non-risk taking                                  Risk taking

Focusing on bottom line                  Focusing on people

Relationships. The acceptance of us as a coach and effectiveness of coaching depend on the relationship with the employee. The relationship gets affected by the following factors:

• Ineffective communication.
• Playing double games.
• Playing favourites.
• Getting involved with employee’s personal problems.
• Ignoring performance gaps.
• Treating employees unfairly.
• Failing to build a sound foundation.

Requirements to become an effective coach. We have to acquire certain skills and practice them to become an effective coach. They are:

·         Ability to organise

·         Compassion                      

·         Creativity                            

·         Enthusiasm                        

·         Flexibility                            

·         Goal orientation                                              

·         Good communication skills (this includes good listening skills too).           

·         Nurturing disposition                                    

·         People orientation

·         Receptivity to feedback

·         Team player mentality.

·         Technical proficiency

The actual process of coaching is not dealt with in this post.