Coaching is an indispensable ability for managers and leaders, as it helps them to refine their skills and progress professionally. It also allows them to gain a better understanding of their employees, the company, and the company's overall objectives. Coaching assists managers in learning how to balance responsibilities, teaching them better time management skills and how to prioritize tasks. When leaders have strong coaching skills, everyone benefits.
In fact, organizations whose leaders have developed coaching skills are 130% more likely to achieve better business results and 39% more likely to achieve better results for employees, such as engagement, productivity and customer service. On the other hand, it can be disheartening for a manager to attempt to advise employees whose problem doesn't require it. Skilled coaches create a secure environment for new ideas, and sometimes a manager can't play that role. Great, successful managers and leaders are making consistent efforts to improve their coaching skills.
A recent study showed discrepancies between managers' self-evaluation of their coaching skills and the evaluation of their teams and colleagues. A manager must recognize situations that require coaching and those that require a different approach. And, to accomplish this, the current manager must act as a guide and coach to bring out the best in his people. In this way, managers acquire the skills, processes and tools that they can immediately apply to their daily lives, where they are training and leading others.
An effective coach, particularly a coach who is interested in transformation and leading change, knows how to guide employees towards innovation and new discoveries. NetApp used leadership advice from BetterUp to teach its managers how to empower company employees and create a culture of high performance. Managers and leaders engage their employees in formal “seated training” sessions or informal “on-the-go” sessions. Coaches focus on helping managers develop their own cognitive agility, emotional regulation, self-compassion, optimism, and self-efficacy to help build resilience.
Used in the right situation at the right time, workplace coaching makes life easier for a manager. According to BetterUp research, managers who underwent leadership training to develop resilience experienced a 31% increase in team performance, a 9% increase in team innovation, and a 52% decrease in exhaustion.
