Today I met with a friend that I began knowing as a professional networking contact over three years ago. After our discussion, I realized that some people have a gift for listening to others so well that they help you communicate your frustrations and come up with action items to work on your issues, not because you asked for help or even intended to ask for it, but because they heard you and were thoughtful enough to offer ideas to get you thinking about how to work on your issues.
About an hour after our talk, I was feeling uplifted and I realized that is what makes a great coach (and leader) -- being empathetic and wiling to share knowledge and life experience to improve someone else's thinking about their own life -- a coach's role is not to solve problems for others.
As a professional consultant/coach and trainer, my goal is to help others to see what they don't see, to understand how to change and do things differently for the betterment of their lives, careers, teams, etc. But I don't always think to follow my own advice when I am struggling -- to listen to someone else's perspective to help me change my thinking pattern. Today I am thankful for receiving coaching that helped me...even though I didn't intentionally seek it...I will make a point of seeking coaching for a perspective that I can use to change mine...
The most successful leaders continuously coach and develop their teams, individually and as a group. This proactive approach develops professionally-satisfied and challenged team players, as well as, a path to natural leadership succession in your organization.
How does a leader coach a team? Here are the essentials:
- Communicate the big picture perspective with your team, LISTEN to them, then ask coaching questions to get them on the same team goals, their individual learning needs and goals will come out too; address both to show that you value them and LISTENED to them, while bringing clarity and direction toward your organization's big picture goal.
- Be honest about your past successes and failures to give learning examples, to encourage creativity in trying new things without fear of failure. This develops trust that leads to mutual understanding and honesty from the team, plus continued learning and development of the team and leader when hearing the team's honesty.
- Once honesty and trust are established in a team, then positive accountability can be achieved in which proactive approaches are developed within the team, not reactive blaming for organizational problems. The leader can nurture this behavior by continually affirming the positive and acknowledging those who create it -- emphasize that everyone in the team/organization, regardless of position or title, can grow, learn and succeed professionally and personally.
- Encourage constructive conflict to achieve higher understanding of issues and create solutions with more productive results. It is only when problems arise that we develop a way to create a better process/approach/solution. Again, open and honest communication is the key to team success in dealing with team conflicts.
When a team is not functioning well together, the consistency of the leader's actions and communication can bring a team to more successful interaction and results. The commitment of the leader to the team and the team to the leader is vital to team success; proactive coaching and team development creates this environment.
For assistance in developing a coaching leadership style, contact us.
If you are having difficulty in getting projects or changes implemented in your organization, hire a professional consultant to help your team get organized and focused on how to accomplish your goals. Understand that a consultant does not take the place of a leader or make leadership decisions, but advises and coaches you and your team.
The most common benefits that a professional consultant provides are:
- an objective perspective in gathering information and identifying problems
- a creative approach to change and new process implementation
- data-driven and constructive analysis, not emotional, which provides a new perspective to your situation to help get past current hurdles
- an accountability to results when guiding new project implementation
- evaluation & training based on specific expertise and analysis.
We give a free initial consultation to discuss your situation and needs. Please contact us to see how we can help you and your organization.