Today, many companies recognize the importance of coaching and the great potential of its impact on business. While one company will decide to hire a business coach externally, other will recognize the advantage of introducing coaching in the company itself internally. We reveal nine key skills of the best coaches that will help you become the most influential manager within your company.
CLEARLY DEFINE THE PURPOSE AND PROCESS OF CONDUCTING ANY TASK
If employees are not sure why they are doing something, they are unlikely to be motivated to do it. Moreover, it’s not only important to do the job, but to do it the right way. For this reason, it is important to define the steps that need to be taken in order to achieve the desired results. However, you should let the employee define these steps! That way, they will develop ownership over their tasks and projects.
BEWARE OF HOW YOU COMMUNICATE
We all differ by the way we like to communicate. Some prefer commands, and others are revolted by them. For this reason, it is important that your communication style varies depending on who you are talking to. The key is that the point of your thoughts remains the same while using various sentence structures.
BE CURIOUS AND A GOOD LISTENER
Remember how many questions you asked when you were a child. A lot, right? You’ve also learned so much. Now, when you are a grown up, it is necessary to keep that curiosity of a child in order to achieve business performance. In what way? Ask questions to your employees and be curious about their answers. If you want to be a great manager, you need to be a great coach, and one of the characteristics of a successful coach is active listening. Therefore, show that you really care about the opinions of your employees and in that way you will encourage innovation and critical thinking. From a bucket of 100 average ideas, a genius one will emerge.
SHOW EMPATHY
If you are in a company in which you are in a managerial position or you have your own company, you simply need to be empathetic. Otherwise, people will follow you because they have to, not because they want to. Listening to the goals and needs of others is a virtue every true leader should have. When you develop active listening, you will be able to realize the real needs and desires of your employees. Furthermore, as your empathy develops, you will perceive each situation objectively and will be able to overcome every challenge one employee has. Empathy can be largely linked with respect and understanding of diversity. By using empathy, you will not just be a person gaining higher titles, but a respected and supportive person to whom employees will turn with every challenge.
RECOGNIZE MAJOR STRENGTHS OF YOUR EMPLOYEES
The quality of successful managers is the ability to assign tasks to the right people. Employee that is great in every area does not exist. Lisa is creative and Mark is great with event management. When you recognize their strengths, motivate them to develop their knowledge and give them tasks within the selected area. When they are successful, they will have confidence boost – success is the main motivator for even better results and bigger projects.
GO SHOULDER TO SHOULDER INTO THE CHALLENGE
Employees face challenges every day during their work tasks. Tensed atmosphere, stressed team and an unusually large amount of work ahead of you. What now? You need to be a comrade to your employees and go shoulder to shoulder through that hectic project. Great leaders do not manage others, but they are partners for success. Another skill of a great leader is looking toward the future and figuring out a way to solve upcoming problems and obstacles.
ASK OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS
In situations where a problem arises, it is necessary to set yourself above this problem in order to solve it successfully. The more complex the problem, the more people will need to be involved in solving it. For this reason, if you really want to hear high-quality suggestions for troubleshooting, ask open-ended questions and do not give any suggestions of your own. That way, you will not create limitations for solutions. One such question is: „If we had all the necessary resources, what would we do?“.
ACCEPT FEEDBACK
Although as a manager you are really trying to do the job at all times in the best possible way, you must accept that you also make mistakes sometimes. In such situations, the most important thing is to accept the critique or mistake and sincerely ask your employees for a constructive feedback. This way, you will show that you really appreciate and respect their opinion. By showing that you accept your own mistakes, you will motivate others to accept theirs more easily. Also, one of the aspects of coaching is that mistakes are something we actually need, if we want to become a better version of ourselves. Learning from our mistakes is the best way to grow.
WELCOME AND CELEBRATE SUCCESS
If you read about our methodology, you know that celebration is the fourth and the last phase of a coaching project. A lot of managers skip the celebration part, because they are „wasting their time“. Try not to call it a time waster, but a motivation booster. When you, as a team, reflect on all the hard work and doubts on your path to success and then see what you have achieved, you will be stronger as a team! People just love to receive recognition for what they have done well. On the other hand, if the work is not well done or the goals are not achieved, despite the efforts, we should not focus on this unfavorable situation, but on the solution. Then we need to examine what can be better, more efficient and different.
We really hope that you already use these features in working with your employees. If that’s not the case, do not worry, it’s always a good time to start. Learn how to coach your team and your employees and how to achieve outsourcing results in business with us on the training „The Art and Science of Coaching“.