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Coaching gets a bad rap because of this kind of empower-unlock-unleash, corporate bullshit. This overinflated, cringy, borderline meaningless, no-one-actually-talks-like-this-except-for-corporate-training-materials type of language.
Intro
Welcome to Lead It Better, the podcast made to help you become a more impactful leader.
Whether you have years of experience or just getting started on your leadership journey, you’re in the right place to pick up practical, actionable advice. We’re gonna discuss not only how to best deal with leadership-related questions and situations but explore why a particular approach might work better than others.
My name’s Marton, and for the better part of a decade, I’ve been helping aspiring, new and experienced leaders develop their skills and leadership strategies.
This is episode 7, and this week we’re gonna talk about coaching. Specifically, about adopting a coaching leadership style – what it is, how it can help you lead better, and how to make it an unconscious habit.
From dead poets to Aladdin
“No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.“
If you ever need inspiration on how to lead and convey your ideas convincingly, go and watch a couple of Robin Williams movies.
“I stand up on my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way. You see, the world looks very different from up here.“
These two quotes are from the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society. It’s one of those films everyone should see – and it’s not just me saying that. Ask the Academy; they give it the Oscar for best original screenplay.
If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a couple of students in an elite boarding school and how their lives are profoundly changed by Robin Williams’ character, John Keating, a teacher with some unorthodox methods. For example, as you heard in the quote, he asks his students to take turns standing on his desk to demonstrate ways to look at life differently. He also tells them to rip out the introduction of their poetry book which describes a mathematical formula to rate the quality of poetry. In short, he encourages his students to think for themselves, break from the norm and normality and dare to be individuals.
Or, to put it in corporate terms: he empowers his students to unlock their full potential.
Ugh…
To be honest, I think coaching gets a bad rap because of this kind of empower-unlock-unleash, corporate bullshit. This overinflated, cringy, borderline meaningless, no-one-actually-talks-like-this-except-for-corporate-training-materials type of language.
The other thing that makes me roll my eyes is the underlying assumption that everyone’s sole focus is their job, and so obviously, deep down, everyone wants to be empowered and unlocked and unleashed. I’m always wary of companies and leaders who require their employees to set personal growth goals for the year and, with that, implicitly frown upon people who just want to come in and do their 9-to-5 job.
Having said all that, I still believe that a coaching leadership style can help you and help you help your team.
But to clear the air of the smell of manure and avoid any misunderstandings, let’s start at the beginning.
What is coaching?
Unlike mentoring, where the mentor would share their experience and insights and provide advice, a coach doesn’t hand out answers or prescribes specific actions. Instead, they ask questions, with which they guide the coachee.
And when I say guide, I don’t mean lead. People new to coaching can sometimes fall into the trap of using leading questions like “have you tried this?” or “what if you do that?”. While it masquerades as a question, it remains a piece of advice, not coaching.
The coaching process focuses on the coachee, so they can discover their own solutions to whatever problem they’re facing. This means the coach needs to step back and – with a few exceptions – stay silent about their ideas. They should primarily be asking open-ended questions.
Ok, but what should the questions be about? For that, there’s a handy coaching framework called the GROW model.
The GROW Model
It’s handy because it does what it says on the tin: it helps people grow. But also, it’s the abbreviation of the four stages included in coaching discussions: G for Goal, R for Reality, O for Options, and W for Will.
Let’s go through them one by one.
- Goal is all about what we’re trying to achieve. No surprise there. Whether we end up with a full-blown “SMART goal” or a short statement of intent, this stage is about knowing where we’re headed and why it’s important.
- Reality, as the name implies, is about the current situation. What’s working? What’s not? What are we working with? And what are we missing? This stage is all about understanding where the coachee is right now and the challenges they’re facing.
- Options (or some people refer to it as Obstacles) is about brainstorming solutions. Exploring different paths, what ifs, and discussing the pros and cons. It’s all about finding the best route to reach the Goal, considering the Reality.
- Will (or as some call it, the Way forward): is about commitment; for the coachee to make a decision, create a solid plan, and take responsibility for their progress.
While GROW is a great mnemonic device to remember the four stages, coaching conversations rarely follow the order of Goal, Reality, Options, and Will.
For example, it would be typical and natural for a person to start talking about the Reality of their situation, not the Goal that they want to achieve. As the conversation unfolds, the coach and coachee might find it necessary to jump back and forth between the stages. So please, for the love of everything, don’t try to force anyone to go through them in consecutive order.
Adding coaching to leadership
Most of what we discussed until now is meant for a typical 1-on-1 coaching discussion. Those are usually planned to happen in 45 to 90 minutes. Realistically, you won’t have this much time on a daily basis for each of your team members. So how do you add this coaching approach to your leadership style? You stick with the cliff notes: ask questions instead of handing out answers.
“Hm. That’s a difficult problem – what solutions do you have in mind? Mhm. Which one do you like more and why? Do you have any concerns about that? Huh. How could you remediate that? Mhm. So by when do you think you could finish it?“
If there’s one book you read about coaching, read Sir John Whitmore’s Coaching for Performance. It’s such a great resource that I own it as an ebook, a paperback, and an audiobook. And what I love about it is that Sir Whitmore understands and addresses the different approaches a coach and a coaching leader might use.
So why is it better to ask questions rather than hand out solutions?
If you had to name one benefit, it’s the sense of ownership you allow your team to have. To quote Robin Williams’ character from the critically acclaimed movie Aladdin: “To be my own master. Such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in all the world.“
When your people own the solution to their problems, it motivates them to follow through, adapt if necessary, and stay accountable for what they have committed.
To put it simply: if I tell you to do something, first of all, you might not think it’s the best idea, and even if you accept my advice, if it doesn’t work out, who’s gonna be responsible? Me. If you design your own action plan (even with my help), you’ll think it’s the best plan ever because it’s your idea, and you’ll want to follow through.
Once it becomes a habit, your team members will be confident to pursue solutions, even without coming to you first.
There’s literally no downside to this.
so here are the top 3 things
you can do to adopt a coaching leadership style.
- Ditch the details of execution
- Question first
- Help create a sense of ownership
1. Ditching the details of execution
That’s what separates coaching leaders from micromanagers.
When you set a goal for a team member, ensure each piece of your direction is there for a reason. You must provide all requirements while being only as specific as necessary.
Let’s say we’re in an orchard, and I ask you to pick 3 pounds of the finest apples you can find. When I check in on you an hour later, I see you’re only halfway through – which is bad because we need all the apples right now. Obviously, I didn’t provide you with all the relevant information, right?
On the other hand, if I’m super specific and ask you to pick 3 pounds of green apples within an hour, do I really need to tell you to use pruning sheers or a ladder? Is that part of the requirement, or is it something I usually do and assume is a best practice?
Even if it is, never let perfection stand in the way of good enough. If you just need 3 pounds of apples in an hour, let your team figure out the details of execution.
Sidenote: This is why I dislike the strict adherence to work instructions. They’re great when it comes to documenting processes, but if they turn into regulations, people tend to get discouraged from thinking. I’ve seen more than once intelligent, capable people who became so dependent on following instructions that they froze up if something wasn’t documented. “How do I do it? It’s not written down.”
Speaking of figuring things out, the second thing you can do to adopt a coaching leadership style is to question first.
2. Question first
If you feel like your team comes up to you with questions they really should know the answer to, chances are, you’re their number one source of problem-solving. You may ask: is that really such a bad thing? After all, didn’t I say repeatedly that it’s your job to help them do their job? No. Your job is to make sure everyone else can do their job. If they’re always coming to you, there’s some part of their job that they can’t do.
If they’re always coming to you, on the one hand, it takes up a considerable amount of your time; on the other, it disables your team when you’re not around. Imagine someone freezing up and eagerly waiting for your return from four hours of back-to-back meetings just to ask something. Or worse, what happens when you go on vacation or get sick?
It sounds weird, but in this context, the best leader is one whose absence is not noticed. Because that means you really made sure everyone else can do their job. Even without you.
So how can you break this habit of answering and build up a habit of asking? What I can tell you is what worked for me, and hopefully, that’ll provide you with some inspiration on what could work for you.
When a team member approached me with a problem, a statement like “sales are being unreasonable” or “the system froze up,” I trained myself to respond with a question. Something like “how can I help?” or “what’s your question?”
In the beginning, I reminded myself every time I saw someone approach that, whatever they said, the first words out of my mouth had to be a question.
This helped me avoid going into full problem-solving mode and enabled me to listen intently to what my team member wanted from me. It helped my team move from their Reality (in the context of the GROW model) and encouraged them to be specific about their Goal.
Most importantly, it allowed them to own the resolution. Which brings me to my third point: you need to help create a sense of ownership.
3. Help create a sense of ownership
This is not to say you should push all ownership to your team. Sometimes, your presence or action is needed to progress with a situation, and it can be discouraging for a team to have a leader who isn’t willing to roll up their sleeves and help out. But you must be intentional about balancing what you take on yourself and what you keep with your team, and clearly communicate who does what.
To build up that sense of ownership in my team, I took a page out of the marketing book of coffee shops. Let me explain. Remember those loyalty cards that promised you a free cup of coffee once you collected, I dunno, ten stamps or stickers? Well, most of the time, the first or even the first two slots already had a sticker. The psychology behind this goes two ways. One, it removes the stress of the first step, which, as we all know, is always the hardest; and second, it provides an itch for the completionists.
I did something very similar. Whenever I thought someone would struggle with the first step or feel left alone with a particular challenge, I agreed to share in the ownership. I’d send off the first email or send out the invite to the meeting but would ask them to do any follow-up actions. Metaphorically speaking, I added the first sticker to their loyalty card.
If I thought someone would be more than ready to handle a situation, but still they asked for my involvement, I switched it around. I offered them a deal that would keep the ownership with them while creating a safety net. I asked them to give it one more try, one more email or whatever it was, and add me on copy. Bring me along. I said, if needed, this way I can step in in a much more natural way. I don’t think I ever needed to step in, though.
Recap
I know from experience that it can feel awkward to start asking questions when all you have done until now is provide answers. If you think you need to justify the change, there are at least two strategies you can try.
Next time someone approaches you with a question, you could say, “Hm. I have an idea on how to solve this, but first, I’d like to know what you think.“
Or you could be fully transparent like one of my mentees, who was brave enough to be vulnerable about the change they wanted to implement and openly told their team members about coaching and that it’s something they’d like to try.
So is this something that would work for you? Let me finish with a quote from Good Will Hunting: “the only way you’re findin’ that one out is by giving it a shot.”
What’s next?
Ok, so what’s next? Where do we go from here?
Another thing that helps develop a sense of ownership in your team is being consistent about accountability. What do you do if someone doesn’t deliver? Do you let it slide if someone comes in just a smidge under what the two of you agreed or what they committed to:
This is what I’d like to discuss with you next time.
If you’re interested, make sure you hit subscribe and share this episode if you think it would benefit someone you know.
Thanks for listening; I’m truly grateful for your time and attention.
Talk to you soon.