I once coached a CEO when one of their VPs interrupted to ask what colour the boss wanted the office painted.
The CEO offered their opinion and then refocused on our conversation. I responded, “Do you really feel that picking out paint colours is a wise use of your mental energy as CEO?” Their counter was, “I don’t stop to think about it much. If someone asks me for my opinion, then I give it to them.”
Oh, the double-edged sword of leadership. Senior leaders must become exceptionally good at making decisions with limited data and be comfortable just making the call. Overusing this style can create a check-in culture where the team becomes overly reliant on the boss’s opinion and hesitates to move without consultation.
Coaching can be intimidating to both novice and experienced leaders.
For the recently trained manager, there is pressure to provide good coaching to their team, but uncertainty and fear about how to do it correctly.
The truth is that bad coaching is better than no coaching, and the only way to improve is to keep experimenting with different tactics. I encourage leaders not to put a lot of pressure on themselves and to rarely, if ever, say, “Let me provide you some coaching on this.”
You don’t need to announce that you are coaching for it to be effective; it is better if you don’t.
Coaching can be done in the moment, like during a meeting, while observing a task, or in a more planned setting, like a one-on-one. Both approaches have benefits.
The goal of coaching is to motivate others and expand their thinking and skills. While feedback is a corrective exercise, coaching is a tool focused on growth and development.
I liken the act of coaching to stretching and shooting an elastic band. The psychological process that coaching involves is exactly this. The objective is to create tension between the current and future desired state and clarity as to where to go next in your direct report’s mind.
To answer the first question of whether coaching is the right tool, the first question to ask is, “Are the answers in the room (aka direct reports’ brain), and do they just need help illuminating and clarifying the path forward? If this is the case, coaching is the best tool for maximum impact.
The second part is asking good questions. For example, I lose my keys a lot, and when I do, the first question that gets asked is, “Where was the last place you put them?” This is an example of a not-so-good coaching question.
For coaching questions to be effective, they should be focused on illuminating different parts of the problem with the intent of bringing clarity to the problem at hand and also the best path forward. The four types of coaching questions should be focused on what we refer to as the 4 C’s of coaching – clarity, compassion, conviction and confidence.
This spectrum can be captured as the consulting-coach continuum where, on the one hand, the leader is seen as having the answers and is outpouring their knowledge to their team members. On the pure coaching side, it is the assumption that the direct report has the answers, but it is just the webs in their brain that are getting in their way from solving the problem.
Not all talent will contribute equally or consistently to the group’s objectives. We all experience periods of good and poor health, and it is important to provide space and compassion for these occasional times of life.
I am not a huge sportsperson. But I love the Olympic games. I am one of those people who will wake up at 2 am just to watch the events live.
My favourite summer sport is the 4-person, 100-meter relay. I liken the hand off of the baton to handoffs at work, where you have hired a team of high performers, but if they can’t pass tasks to each other, group achievement will suffer.
I once coached a CEO when one of their VPs interrupted to ask what colour the boss wanted the office painted.
The CEO offered their opinion and then refocused on our conversation. I responded, “Do you really feel that picking out paint colours is a wise use of your mental energy as CEO?” Their counter was, “I don’t stop to think about it much. If someone asks me for my opinion, then I give it to them.”
Oh, the double-edged sword of leadership. Senior leaders must become exceptionally good at making decisions with limited data and be comfortable just making the call. Overusing this style can create a check-in culture where the team becomes overly reliant on the boss’s opinion and hesitates to move without consultation.
Meet Our Partners
Rob Luke, BSc, MA
Rob Luke is a highly sought-after advisor to CEOs and Founders who are leading through periods of rapid business growth or navigating through significant change. Over the past 10 years, Rob has worked with 75+ businesses across 16 industries and has supported CEOs, Founders and Boards through business restructuring, stabilizing core culture while scaling fast, CEO/President selection, finding and integrating key leadership talent into existing teams, and advising on change plans & communications.
Prior to co-founding Allen Leigh, Rob held various leadership roles within the public and healthcare sectors and was responsible for implementing large multi-stakeholder change and quality improvement initiatives. In that environment, Rob managed the performance of over 1,500 healthcare professionals. Rob has delivered over 3,000 leadership assessments, has worked with more than 500 senior leaders, and has managed 30+ organizational change, development, and leadership projects in industries such as hospitality, retail, technology, healthcare law, accounting, construction, manufacturing, and non-profits.
Rob has his Master of Organizational Leadership and is certified in more than 30 individual and organizational assessments.
Jessalyn Hanna, BA, CHRP
Jessalyn Hanna is our in-residence Executive Coach and co-founder of Allen Leigh Consulting (ALC). For the past 10 years, Jessalyn has coached hundreds of senior and emerging leaders across 16 industries including healthcare, retail, non-profit, academic, manufacturing, technology, and government.
Jessalyn’s focus in coaching is to provide leaders with the thinking space to reflect on and process current business challenges, supply practical tools to support and leverage their personal style, and bring a fresh perspective to help critically shape their thinking and experiment with new shifts in style to achieve greater impact.
Jessalyn also leads our Assessment Centre and is certified in 20+ global assessments and provides a unique practical perspective in using assessments to accelerate individual/business growth and bring critical insights into the hiring process.
Jessalyn has her BA from the University of Guelph and is a Certified Human Resources Professional and Kolbe™ Consultant and has accumulated the required professional hours and is finalizing certification with both CTI and the International Coaching Federation.
