Leadership Coaching: Why This Skill Is Necessary For A Productive Workforce
Think back to a good coach or leader that you had in the past. Maybe it was the coach for your local baseball team or a mentor at a summer camp. Do you have a particular person in mind? This individual was a good leader that left an impression on us. And these same types of individuals need to be present in the workplace.
An amazing company leader should have the ability to act as a mentor and coach for their team. When they have the skills to do this, employees tend to work harder and more productively.
Below, we discuss why the management skill of coaching is essential for all successful leaders to have and the benefits that it will give your team and you as a professional.
Leadership Coaching: The Sign Of Good Management
It is well known that leaders are at the core of companies. However, according to recent leadership development statistics, as much as 71% of organizations including their employees don’t believe that leaders today have it takes to bring their company into the future.
The reason for this is that most leaders don’t have what it takes to be a good coach for their employees. And this is because training leaders to learn how to become coaches in the workplace is not always widely practiced.
So, what can a leader who is also a coach able to bring to the table? And why is it considered a sign of good management?
The best leaders, like the best coaches, give those around them the tools they need to succeed. When an employer successfully coaches their employees, it helps employees accomplish a number of things: build valuable skills and knowledge, feel supported and encouraged and experience the pride of overcoming obstacles. A good coach in the workplace has the ability to inspire and motivate others to work to their best potential.
Long gone are the days of traditional command-and-control leadership practices. The sign of good management in today’s twenty-first-century workforce is a manager that guides and supports rather than purely just giving instructions.
What Employees Look For In Coaches And Mentors
Employees of today would rather view managers from the perspective of an individual that they can learn from and seek guidance from. Historically, a manager was viewed as someone who had seniority and who held power over other employees. Today’s workforce expects something very different.
In reality, a good coach in the eyes of an employee is someone who walks alongside the team rather than standing out in front of them. Employees want to work with an individual who is more concerned with their team achieving collective goals and personal goals. They shouldn’t be concerned with earning accolades based on the team’s performance but rather, mentor employees to achieve a new level of performance.
Developing Management Skills: Benefits For Leaders
This shift from manager to coach is happening but by focusing on the development of necessary management and leadership skills, your company will receive many benefits that will have a notable impact on the productivity of your employees.
1. Creates A Relationship Of Trust And Understanding
A leader that can effectively coach and mentor others has the ability to create a strong relationship of trust and understanding among employees. When a manager is able to foster a strong sense of trust in the workplace it makes employees feel more appreciated and boosts employee morale overall.
It’s important to remember that trust is built through actions and not words. As a manager, you need to be able to show your employees that you have confidence in their abilities and that you are actively supporting them on a daily basis.
When an individual is able to coach and mentor others effectively, it also has the ability to reduce conflicts in the workplace. One of the main management skills that you will need to perfect as the role of a leader is that of communication. When you have fostered a clear and transparent communication channel between yourself and employees, it is much easier to eliminate situations of conflict between employees. This inevitably will create a happier and healthier work environment for your employees.
2. Reduces Workplace Conflict
3. Allows For Organizational Change
Providing coaching to other employees also helps to prepare the future leaders of the company. By actively providing guidance through both words and actions, employees are given the starting block skills they need to advance within their careers, both inside and outside of the organization. Many managers today who received coaching advice from a senior-level leader note the importance that it made in their transition into a managerial role.
Acting as a coach and mentor to your employees will allow for succession planning and organizational change within the future.
Finally, knowing how to effectively lead and mentor those that you work with helps to build a productive team environment. As we mentioned earlier, employees prefer when their leaders walk alongside them and don’t have a closed-door policy. By proving to employees that you are as much of the team as they are, this shows that you all have a vital role to play.
Fostering a team environment is the most important thing that you need to accomplish as a leader. This will create a great work culture and has been proven to increase employee engagement and productivity.
4. Builds A Team Environment
Building A Productive Workforce Through Leadership
The truth is that not all managers have the skills they need to make this a reality for their employees. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t. Whether you are new to the leadership role or have been a manager for years, it is always beneficial to develop your leadership skills so that you can become the mentor that your employees are looking for.
Here at the Training Company, we provide a range of leadership skills training courses to businesses of all sizes. Our leadership courses cover skills such as communication, project management and how to deliver effective feedback.
Interested in hearing more about the courses we have available? Get in touch with our team today.