There’s a lot of jargon out there about what it means to be a good leader, but at its core, being a leader means helping to develop others. It’s really that simple, and the how boils down to leveraging coaching skills and techniques to bring out the best in your people. But the impact of developing your people transcends your workplace, it literally makes the world a better place. So, if you want to live in a better world, it’s time to become a better leader. Here’s how coaching is the key to doing just that.
Coaching helps develop your team
As a leader part of your job is to not only lead your team but also to develop them. A leader creates the conditions for others to become the best versions of themselves and lights the pathway forward. Let’s break that down. You don’t do it for them, you show them how to do it for themselves.
Motivation comes from within. Self-directed development is more sustainable and impactful than development that comes from pressure, obligation, or expectation. A great leader recognizes that and leads their team to recognize the what, when, where, how, and why they want to develop. You help them set goals and achieve them. Coaching is a process of helping people find answers on their own.
Develop their confidence to repeat any successes and help them grow as a person.
Coaching helps grow your team
When you coach your team, they grow and they grow more confidently. They solve problems on their own without needing your input for everything. They solve problems before you ever heard there were problems. Doesn’t that sound like a dream? You have to give trust to get investment.
When you coach your team to trust themselves, to see their value, they will step up and show up. Better leadership means stepping back and letting your people find their niches, enhance their skills, and contribute in ways that are meaningful to them, and valuable to your business.
- Coaching is more observations, less assumptions.
- Coaching is more reflecting, less it’s my way or the highway.
- Coaching is more collaboration, less hierarchy.
- Coaching is more autonomy, less one decides for all.
- Coaching helps you get out of the way so your team can rise to the occasion.
Coaching helps your team solve problems
Coaching is all about reflective listening. You’re a facilitator. An active listener. An expert knows when to add their two cents and when to provide space for somebody else’s answers. When you use that wisdom and discernment, you create an environment where your team focuses less on the drama and more on solutions.
When you leverage coaching, you listen better. Instead of trying to solve problems, you coach your team to solve them. And that benefits everybody.
A business that’s completely reliant on the voice, decisions, and perspective of one is on shaky ground. Better leadership recognizes each part of the whole is essential to its functioning. When you embrace that by coaching your team, you create a culture that’s solution-oriented and a team that can work together through any challenge that comes their way.
Coaching helps you lead with compassion
Coaching is rooted in empathy–not sympathy. When you can embrace empathy and bypass judgment when it comes to understanding the perspective, values, motivations, and dreams of your team, you naturally fall into a more compassionate state of mind. You lead with more compassion and see people for all the layers of humans they are. Not just as employees or contractors.
When you view your people as just resources, visitors passing through, you risk missing the important stuff. What your team needs to succeed. How to create a work environment that works for everyone. The connection between workplace satisfaction and productivity.
And when times get tough (and they inevitably do), it’s harder to find common ground to work through the challenges. It’s easier to fall into an “us vs. them” mentality, to lose sight of the unified team that you are. You’re not working with machines, you’re working with people.
Compassionate leaders lead dream teams that experience both resilience in the face of challenges and higher levels of success.
Coaching helps you uncover truths
When you’re coaching, you’re asking lots of questions and exploring all kinds of avenues. Curiosity is the name of the game. By truly embracing curiosity and asking more questions you learn to set your agenda to the side in the name of discovery.
You uncover truths you may have missed before. Truths you need right now. Truths that will benefit you, your team, and your business. Those truths can lead you in new, exciting directions and to come up with novel solutions to challenges. They can help you identify unforeseen risks and get closer and closer to making your vision a reality. Uncovering truths can lead your people and your business in the right direction.
Without coaching, you may be quick to jump to conclusions, fall victim to biases, and lead your business and your team astray.
You can uncover truths if you’re blinded by your own ambition or agenda. Coaching teaches humility and open-mindedness, two key ingredients for better leadership.
Small business coaching for netter leadership
When you coach people effectively, you not only help them develop but also gain the confidence they need to find a greater sense of self and purpose. It’s a clear pathway to better leadership. Everybody wins when the people you lead go on to lead rich, fulfilling lives where they contribute to their families and communities in a meaningful way. If you’re ready to learn more about the coaching process, I’d love to hear from you! Let’s schedule a Discovery Call to talk leadership.
