ARE YOU COACHING CORRECTLY AS A LEADER?

In HASC's LEAD class on Foundational Leadership, our facilitators spend a lot of time focusing on Leadership Styles. 

COACHING involves a great deal of "hands-on" involvement in an employee's work process. As a rule, a coaching approach works best when the employee shows weaknesses that need improvement. For coaching to be effective, the employee must acknowledge those weaknesses and indicate a desire to improve. 

Employees who need a Leader to be a Coach display the following:

• Have a desire for clear goals
• Need perspective
• Frequently want feedback
• Look for praise for progress
• Need assurance that mistakes are okay

Keep in mind that all employees move through a life-cycle of
competence and commitment.

Competence – knowledge & skills gained from education training
and experience.

Commitment – a combination of confidence and motivation.

 Employees who need greater coaching have SOME competence and LOW commitment.

COACHING embraces collaboration and pushing employees to set and reach their potential while contributing to the team’s greater goals, creating a harmony of personalized goal-setting and career mapping. 

If you are COACHING an employee, you should be sure to:

• Involve the employee in identifying problems and in setting goals
• Provide support, reassurance, and praise
• Listen and offer the employee an opportunity to discuss concerns and share ideas
• Involve the employee in problem-solving and decision making
• Make final decisions about action plans after listening to the employee's ideas and feelings
• Provide direction and coaching to continue building and refining skills
• Explain why a particular approach is being taken
• Provide perspective about how long things should take and feedback about whether development and performance are on track
• Define what a good job will look like and how performance will be tracked with the employee
• Continue to provide frequent follow-up and feedback