Develop Your Managers as Coaches, Give Your People Wings and Watch Them Fly!

Are your managers graduates of the “just do it!” school of performance management?

Do they tell, control, instruct, direct and push staff along in the job?

Does your organisation want employees who willingly put in their best performance, give the job everything they’ve got? Discover the powerful secret of non-directive performance management and set your people free!

Traditional command and control models of performance management are losing impact. Ineffective middle managers compound the problem. Failing to get to grips with poor performance can drain away the productive lifeblood of your organisation.

Developing your managers as coaches opens up a whole new approach to performance management. Instead of solving performance problems for staff, coaching helps people to identify and develop solutions for themselves.

Your managers can help your employees to take responsibility for their performance through raising their awareness and giving them the opportunity to make intelligent choices. Wouldn’t you like to see your people taking ownership of their work, their output and their personal growth and development?

A manager’s job is to get things done through the people they are responsible for. This involves training and developing people so that they can perform to the best of their ability.

The trouble is, managers don’t devote enough time to developing their staff. If that’s the case, how on earth are they going to find the time to coach their people? The beauty of coaching is that it takes the heat off the manager and actually gives them time to think, plan and manage!

Managers as coaches - the non-directive approach
So how do managers working as coaches behave differently? Simple – they use a non-directive approach to managing performance.

Managers who tell, instruct and advise push people along, solving their problems for them and holding onto responsibility and control.

Managers who ask questions, listen, suggest and summarise pull people towards greater freedom and responsibility, allowing them to make their own decisions, create their own solutions, grow and develop new skills.

What does coaching help you to do?

• free managers up to manage

• tap into potential

• develop people

• increase learning

• improve performance

• engage employees

• develop a coaching culture

Command and control management stifles employee behaviour. Coaching creates the conditions which allow employees to become more involved in decision making, have greater discretion and feel more valued.

The smart and simple way to get the best from your people is for your managers to leave the school of “just do it” and develop their coaching skills!

The scope for coaching employees is endless.

It achieves incredible results when:

• people join the organisation

• people join a new team or working group

• people are promoted

• they start a special project

• they take on a challenge

• they need to learn new tasks

• they make an important presentation.

• there is great change ahead

• problems arise

• performance dips and needs to improve.

The relationship between manager and employee should be mutually beneficial. Employees look to their manager for direction, support and recognition.

Managers rely on their staff to get the job done, achieve targets and satisfy customers.

Coaching helps to cement this relationship and presents opportunities for both manager and employee to achieve their objectives at work.

So, can any manager coach? It starts with good people management and well developed communication skills.

Then, through individual assessment, training, coaching and supervision, your managers can go on to develop the skills they need to be effective workplace coaches. Help them to discover their strengths and potential and to provide insight into where they are now and what they need to do differently to become effective coaches.

Develop your managers so that they can build rapport, pay attention, keep an open mind, frame questions, hold back, listen, give feedback and transfer ownership to their staff. Turn them into coaches, set your people free, give them wings - and watch them fly!