When you hear the word “coach”, what comes first into your mind? Do you picture a foortball team with a man/woman shouting out instructions?
Coaching is not only for sports teams; it is now used widely in leadership and management, but why is coaching so popular?
Coaching is one of the six emotional leadership styles proposed by Daniel Goleman. As a leadership style, coaching is used when the members of a group or team are competent and motivated, but do not have an idea of the long-term goals of an organization.
This involves two levels of coaching: team and individual. Team coaching makes members work more effectively together. In a group of individuals, not every person will have nor share the same level of competence and commitment to the goal. A group may be a mix of highly competent and moderately competent members with varying levels of commitment. These differences can often cause friction between the members.
The coach helps the members level their expectations. Also, the coach manages differing perspectives so that the common goal of the team is more important than the personal goals and interests of the team members. In a big organization, leaders need to align the staffs’ personal values and goals with that of the organization so that long-term directions can be pursued.
Individual coaching is an example of situational leadership at work. It aims to mentor one-on-one building up the confidence of members by affirming good performance during regular feedbacks; and increase competence by helping the member assess his/her strengths and weaknesses towards career planning and professional development. Depending on the individual’s level of competence and commitment, a leader may exercise more coaching behavior for the less-experienced members. Usually, this happens in the case of new staff members. The direct supervisor gives more defined tasks and holds regular feedbacks for the new staff, and gradually lessens the amount of coaching, directing, and supporting roles to favor delegating as competence and confidence increase.
Coaching also develops high commitment to common goals. A coaching leader balances the attainment of immediate targets with long-term goals towards the vision of an organization. As mentioned earlier, with the alignment of personal goals with organizational or team goals, personal interests are kept in check. By constantly communicating the vision through formal and informal conversations, the members are inspired and motivated. Setting short-term team goals aligned with organizational goals; and making an action plan to attain these goals can help sustain the increased motivation and commitment to common goals of the members.
Leadership by example is extremely important in coaching. A coach loses credibility when he or she cannot practice what they preaches. This means that the coach should be well organized, highly competent is his or her field, communicates openly and encourages feedback, and has a clear idea of the organization’s vision-mission-goals. If a team member experiences good coaching, he or she is most likely to do the same things when entrusted with formal leadership roles.
Some words of caution though: coaching is just one of the styles of leadership. It can be done in combination with the other five emotional leadership styles depending on the profile of the emerging team. Moreover, coaching as a leadership style requires that you are physically, emotionally, and mentally fit most of the time since it involves two levels of coaching: individual and team. Your members expect you to be the last one to give up or bail out in any situation especially during times of crises. A coaching leader must be conscious that coaching entails investing time on each individual, and on the whole team. Moreover, that the responsibilities are greater since while you are coaching members, you are also developing future coaches as well.
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