The coaching relationship is a choice, not an obligation. That is, managers need to choose to make coaching their priority because they believe in the tremendous value they can deliver, rather than coach because they were told they have to. Don’t coach just to “check the box.” Here’s why it’s so critical to make this internal shift to want to coach.
The relationship between the coach and the people who are coached is a designed alliance, a collaborative partnership, and more. As such, remedial or sanctioned coaching is often met with resistance rather than with open arms.
How is coaching being offered to your team or to your employees? A perk, an incentive, an option, an obligation, or a remedial response to underperformance? Are you offering it to your entire team, to a select few, or to just one person?
Every single person must get coached and coached consistently. Otherwise, you run the risk of positioning coaching in a way that will be met with resistance, especially if you’re only coaching when there’s a problem or only coaching the underperformer. When this happens, your average to top performers will not want to be coached because the manager has positioned coaching as something that’s done if you’re ‘broken and need fixing,’ instead of positioning coaching as something that everyone gets because it’s a gift you give, a way to facilitate deeper engagement, a more powerful language and communication style that support others in achieving their goals.
It’s the manager’s responsibility to enroll each person on their team on the benefits of coaching and being coached. If the manager is forced to coach because they were told to, in turn, they will reluctantly attempt to coach without authentically believing in it. As such, they’re going to then force coaching or what they perceive to be coaching upon their direct reports. Consequently, this results in delivering bad, ineffective coaching. In addition, this creates an unhealthy relationship from the start that’s devoid of the essential ingredient for coaching to be effective, that is; trust.
There’s no question, EVERY manager must coach their people to honor the primary objective of leadership. That is, to make your people more valuable. Coaching is the only way to achieve this, develop your people and have each person live their fullest potential today. What I’m referring to here is, managers need to CHOOSE to make coaching their priority because of the tremendous value they can deliver, rather than coach because they were told they have to or it’s part of their job description.
It’s making that internal shift to WANT to coach because they believe in it, rather than coach to check a box that it was done, without considering the impact or the quality of the coaching. If the manager isn’t fully committed, bought into the value of coaching and the importance of developing their coaching skill set, then their coaching will not be effective. Here’s a video I did that supports this.
