nerdleader

There is something so inspiring about a good coach. Throughout the sports world they are cast as superstars in their own right and turned into millionaires and celebrities. We recognize the powerful effect a good coach has on individuals and teams and the deleterious effect a bad coach can have on motivation and team value. However, in my experience, for leaders the emphasis appears to be on mentorship as opposed to coaching. Indeed, we only hear about the value an “executive coach” can bring but have a dearth of options for others. This week we will look at how, and why, you should improve your coaching aptitude, and next week we will put it into practice with a real-world example.

This is not to take anything away from mentoring. It is important to build strong long-term relationships with individuals and to share learnings, allowing each other to contextualize shared stories and find relevant meanings. New growth and perspective can often be nurtured by a mentor, and you who are reading this have much to offer others by sharing your experience and knowledge. Personally, I enjoy talking about the many varied experiences I have had – if you know me in person, you know I am a storyteller who loves to (over?) share. I truly enjoy when others are inspired or educated by what I have accomplished … or at least attempted!

Yet, there is so much you can help others achieve by being present with them and witnessing their struggles and strengths. Having a north star to guide oneself is crucial, but of utmost importance is putting one step in front of the other, crossing gaps, climbing over obstacles, and journeying to a destination. We should all be willing to help others on their journeys, and that is the essence of coaching.

The first step in improving your ability to be a good coach is to understand the approach you need to take with others before you even attempt to help. You need to be authentic in your desire to help, and it must be noticeable by those you are attempting to help. You must foster a positive, solution-oriented mindset and approach coaching with enthusiasm and competence; understandably, no one wants to be coached by an unhappy, incompetent person who does not even want to be putting forth effort. Simultaneously, you must help others become coachable. You must use your bearing to put them at ease, and then build rapport with your trainee. This not only allows you to understand more about your trainee’s strengths and weaknesses, but it allows them to open up to you and interact with truthfulness.

Now that you have the ability to build a great foundation for your coaching relationship you must build an improvement plan. You should work with your trainee to identify what short-term goals or tasks they have coming up or use your insight to make suggestions. You will then need to model three areas in a type of gap analysis:

1. The required skills to accomplish the task (or improve upon its execution)
2. Your trainee’s current strengths and proficiencies
3. Areas of improvement

Once you understand what your trainee needs to build or improve upon you can work together to build new habits and skills. Like much in technology this is also an iterative process. Just as the Vikings need to consistently train and practice, so must we teach, reinforce, observe, and measure. The day to day work of coaching is in these four steps.

1. Teach – give your trainee new knowledge and perspective and allow them to practice
2. Reinforce – help your trainee understand where to find more information, and give corrective feedback on how they are implementing your lessons
3. Observe – show up for your trainee and observe how they are implementing what they have been taught.
4. Measure – create a before and after picture of performance to illustrate growth

Lastly, you will want to meet with your trainee at the end of a coaching cycle to review. Turn this into an opportunity to review where your trainee started and where they are currently at and see if it is time to build a new coaching plan. It is one-on-one time to build greater rapport and gather additional insight into your trainee so that you may dig deeper for the next coaching cycle.

In sum, the above steps are designed to help you complete three high-level tasks:

1. Set yourself up for coaching success
2. Build a baseline and a plan
3. Iterate on skill improvement

Next week, we will explore putting this plan into action via real-world examples and contextualize WHY improving your coaching aptitude will help you improve as a leader.