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Coaching for Leadership

When it comes to empowering employees, a little encouragement goes a long way.

By Susan Cramm

February 26, 2007 — CIO — You can make a big difference in someone's life with very little effort on your part. This is the secret sauce behind the success of the coaching profession. With only an hour every week or so, coaches impact lives and receive accolades out of proportion with the depth or breadth of the relationship. Exhibit A: An e-mail received from an executive with whom I spent 15 hours over six months working on team-based coaching.

"I often remember the leadership 'experience.' It really changed my life, both business and private wise. I feel I have adopted a more confident style of leadership, and it is delivering results for me and those who surround me."

Although I love my job and the kudos, I think it's sad that companies have to look outside their walls for help in fulfilling some of the fundamental needs of their workforce, such as helping individual workers identify and achieve their long-term goals. Outsourcing care and concern isn't the ideal approach for meeting these needs. They are best provided for by those who are close at hand. It is for this reason that I always encourage my clients to pay it forward: to understand my coaching techniques and apply them to those they are entrusted to lead.

For those of you who are inclined to take on the role of a coaching leader but are uncertain as to approach or time requirements, let me dispel a couple of myths, offer a caveat, and provide some encouragement.

Myth 1: Coaching is a specialist skill that takes years of practice. In reality, if you are a parent, you already know the fundamentals of coaching. Most leaders have kids and thus are practiced in the art of helping others anticipate consequences and reflect on outcomes to make better decisions in the future. Coaching leaders, like parents, also help others recognize their talents. They foster the accumulation of knowledge and the development of abilities to achieve goals that are important to the individual and provide value to the organization.

To encourage growth, coaches establish clear standards, define stretch goals, and celebrate accomplishments. They also create "space" in the form of increased authority and delegation around the individual to encourage creativity, initiative and risk taking.

Myth 2: Coaching takes too much time. Rest assured that coaching isn't a distraction from getting work done. Rather, it's a fulfilling and productive way to get individuals working in concert with the needs of their teams and organization.

 

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