Coaching skills can help an organisation grow and evolve. As organisations respond to and adapt to change, we’re moving past a top-down management style and into more collaborative working styles.
Strong leadership is essential for building a constructive organisational culture. While no management style will suit everyone, equipping yourself with collaborative management skills, including coaching, can help grow empowered teams and a successful business.
In this post, we’ll talk more about what coaching skills are and what constitutes strong leadership. We’ll then discuss how you can learn and implement coaching skills in a leadership position.
What are coaching skills?
Coaching is a collaborative process that helps people and organisations reach their full potential. While there are many coaching models, one of the most well-known is the GROW Model. Graham Alexander, Alan Fine, and Sir John Whitmore developed this model, which is one of the easiest ways to explain coaching.
The G stands for goal, meaning every coaching session starts with what the coachee wants to achieve. In the context of this article, an overarching coaching goal could be becoming a more effective leader. Then, in each session, a session goal will focus on what a coachee wants to achieve in a specific session in relation to their umbrella goal(s).
The R involves assessing the current reality. By addressing the “R”, coaches and coachees reflect on what is working, what isn’t, and what’s getting in the way. Following our example of learning leadership skills, a reality to address can include feeling frustrated in your role and thinking about what behaviour contributes to this reality.
Once coaches and coachees reach the O stage, which stands for options, it’s time to brainstorm solutions and filter them according to what is possible and what makes the most sense to the coachee. For example, learning to speak up could include contributing more in meetings, asking for more responsibility at work, and other ways of taking initiative.
At the final W stage, coaches discuss “will.” In other words, what will I do moving forward? What changes am I committed to making? This stage can include developing an action plan to help reach long-term goals that involve growing and evolving as a leader.
This process involves igniting awareness and deeper insight. The coach serves as a thinking partner for the coachee, helping them explore themselves and their current situation. Taking action makes all the difference if the coachee wants to create change.
What is strong leadership?
If we want to understand how coaching skills can help us to become more effective leaders, we also need to understand what a strong leader is in a contemporary context. Importantly, it’s essential to differentiate between dominance and leadership.
As the Harvard Business Review article “The Leader as Coach ” discusses, many managers or people in leadership positions may use a more directive style, which involves telling people what to do. However, this approach doesn’t necessarily guarantee high engagement or leadership success, although it can form part of a collaborative management style.
A highly directive approach is called “command and control” and may have worked for some people and organisations in the past. However, in a rapidly changing and uncertain world, managers can’t know how to do everything and don’t have all the answers, so a more collaborative leadership style has emerged. As the authors of the HBR article state:
“To cope with this new reality, companies are moving away from traditional command-and-control practices and toward something very different: a model in which managers give support and guidance rather than instructions, and employees learn how to adapt to constantly changing environments in ways that unleash fresh energy, innovation, and commitment.”
This quote shows how strong leadership in today’s world goes beyond being in a position of power. To be an effective leader, one must learn to listen, guide and facilitate collaborative problem-solving. As the abovementioned article title suggests, strong leadership is more about coaching than controlling, although managers may still need to be directive occasionally.
Incorporating a coaching approach into your leadership style enhances your leadership skills and builds the leadership skills of your team members. It involves the employee stepping up, taking initiative, and taking accountability for their increasingly self-directed work.
Combining coaching and leadership skills
If we examine what coaching involves, guided by the GROW model, we can see how it can contribute to building strong leadership skills.
For example, leaders can adopt one of the four coaching styles outlined in the HBR article. These styles include directive, non-directive, situational, and laissez-faire.
As we’ve discussed, directive management involves telling people what to do. This style can be helpful when the relationship is more of a one-way learning interaction, for example, when mentoring. A non-directive style involves listening, asking questions, and helping the coachee develop a solution.
The laissez-faire approach, which involves not getting involved, is also helpful in some circumstances, as there is no need to interfere when things are working. Finally, situational coaching combines a directive and non-directive approach, whichever is best suited to the situation.
Hone your coaching and leadership skills at SACAP Global
Given how complex and unpredictable our world has become, learning coaching skills can help us become more effective leaders.
As this article discusses, being a strong leader isn’t so much about telling people what to do but guiding them and facilitating conversations that can lead to better solutions.
If you’d like to learn more about coaching skills, as well as how to become a more supportive leader and manager, register for one of our online short courses below:
- Intro to Coaching
- Coaching Skills for Management
- Intro to Management and Leadership
- The Art of Motivation: Empower Self and Others
- Developing a Growth Mindset
For more information about what else we offer, browse our course list.