Can Leaders Be Coaches?

In July this year, we’re launching our first ever open programme called The Leader as Coach. It’s a milestone for us as we expand our offering to include learning experiences open to anyone, not just those whose organisation has decided to invest in a development programme.

I’m particularly chuffed about the choice of topic. Since I got my first coaching diploma in 2007, I’ve known that coaching has the power to transform individuals, teams and businesses, and I’m genuinely excited that we’re now creating an opportunity for leaders who want a piece of the action.

But first, a challenge.

The thing about taking a coaching approach is that it challenges traditional notions of leadership. You know the things I’m talking about – the idea that leaders need to have all the answers, give direction, make decisions, fix things and solve problems. After all, we end up in leadership roles because we CAN do all those things so why would we choose NOT to?

A coaching approach means letting go of the need to be or do all these things, and instead enabling your people to do it for themselves.

Yikes.

I remember the first training programme I ran on how to use a coaching style of management. It was about 15 years ago when I was working at a Financial Services company based in the City of London. One of the managers who came on the programme worked in the Operations division, and had a reputation as a fairly, ahem, straight-talking boss. He spoke to me a few weeks later about how he’d been getting on trying out more of a coaching approach: “they just looked at me, like, what are you on about?” It was such a contrast to his usual style that his team didn’t know what to make of it. They were suspicious of why he wasn’t just telling them what to do, like normal. He felt odd not giving them the answers.

Getting used to asking not telling

In simple terms, coaching is about asking questions to help people work things out for themselves. As a manager or leader, it can feel counterintuitive to deliberately not share your knowledge or advice in the moment, but it’s often where the most meaningful experiences happen for others. Given the space, encouragement and opportunity, we are capable of so much more than when we’re told what to do.

Everybody benefits

Sure, there are times when being given direction or advice is helpful or even necessary (never ask someone what they think they should do if a building is on fire), but if more managers and leaders had the confidence to resist the initial urge to tell and instead ask a simple question, they’d find themselves with a more motivated team, better quality solutions to problems, and increased levels of innovation and creativity. As well as these marvellous benefits, they’d also find themselves with more time to focus on the things they know they should be doing but can’t because they’re stuck in the weeds. It’s win-win.

Play the long game

One of the most common grumbles we hear from managers learning to be more coach-like is that it takes too long and/or requires patience to see the results. And sure, if you can respond to an email or message with the answer in two minutes, why would you bother going down the ask-a-question-to-get-the-person-to-think-for-themselves route, ‘cos you know that’s going to take longer?

Well think about how many times you get interrupted in a day with questions from your team.

Now imagine what it would be like if your people thought for themselves before coming to you for help.

But play the short one too

Adopting a coaching approach doesn’t always take more time. Once you let your team know that you’re looking to build their confidence and independence by not always giving them the answer, you’ll find you can coach ‘in the moment’. A considered question in response to a request for help can unlock answers in record time. Check out Michael Bungay Stanier’s book ‘The Coaching Habit’ for 7 simple but super powerful questions you can try out.

If you’re curious about how you can adopt more of a coaching approach in your leadership, here are my top tips:

• Challenge yourself to ask more open questions in all sorts of situations – you know the ones, they start with what, how, who, when, which etc.
• Take a breath and count down from 10 before responding to a request for help from one of your team – this will help you avoid the ‘saviour/teacher’ role
• Get curious – when we’re interested in what people are saying, we naturally ask more questions so tune in to your team and what’s going on for them
• Pick a few ‘go-to’ questions that you can try out – ‘what do you think I’m going to suggest?’ is one of my favourites for managers
• Let your team know that you’re trying more of a coaching approach and why you’re doing it – that way they’re not suspicious of why you’re not always giving them the answers

If you’d like to find out more about our new ‘The Leader as Coach’ programme, click here!