In this ‘part 7’ of our series of posts linked to Maximum Performance’s Management Development Programme, we look at an element of the manager’s role that has become more important, and widely accepted, in recent years: coaching.
Few managers would deny the necessity of continually developing their team’s skills and knowledge. A more flexible team is able to tackle changing workloads – whether due to increased customer demand, team absences, or other shifts in the balance of resources and required performance. The manager’s role in this could be direct instruction (or ‘teaching’), guidance, mentoring, counselling for specific situations, or coaching. This post takes a brief look at the importance of coaching as a key management responsibility.
Coaching: helping another person to improve awareness, to set and achieve goals in order to improve a particular behavioural performance.
How to spot a coaching manager
Are you a coaching manager? Ask yourself if the following sounds like you with your team…
- Goals and objectives are jointly agreed, not imposed.
- You ask genuine questions (as opposed to ‘questions’ that are really messages, accusations, etc.; e.g. “Why did you do it like THAT?!”)
- You listen more than you tell.
- Innovation and personal responsibility is encouraged across the team (by you initially but a coaching approach can help embed these attitudes in the team’s culture).
- Feedback is focused on improving performance (Gallup reports that only 26% of employees say the feedback they receive from their manager improves their performance).
- Goals and methods are discussed instead of instructions being given.
Basic coaching skills for managers
In it’s simplest terms, a coaching skill set for managers includes:
- Asking questions to raise awareness
- Active listening
- Paraphrasing
- Summarising
- Advice & guidance
- Feedback
- Rapport-building
These skills are usually deployed during so-called coaching conversations. A coachable moment may be a missed objective or task, a change in circumstances that affect (or will affect) an individual’s role, a one-off instance of underperformance, the unexpected… or maybe one of your team just asks you for some advice or input.
The key to many coaching conversation begins with the art of the question. Different types of question can be used to focus attention, generate new ideas, encourage engagement or exploration, and foster commitment. Open questions will open up a conversation instead of imposing your own perspective. Closed questions can be used to give definite answers or guide a conversation. Unsurprisingly, this module of Maximum’s Management Development Programme includes a focus on question types!
The ‘traditional’ manager is often good at spotting problems. But knowing how to get the root of a problem and working with the team member so that they tackle the ‘problem’ with you requires a coaching approach.
At Maximum Performance, we believe in the value of management development, and the value of the individual manager. The MDP is one of our core programmes and we focus closely on the impact and consequences of the manager role because it’s a powerful role and what you do matters – one way or the other!
For more information on management development, and how we can use it to address your specific organisational and business needs, check out our MDP page or give us a call on 01582 463460. We’re here to help.
