The Effective Leaders’ Blog
It’s Kind of Like Beachball Coaching; Bouncing Back Ideas & Resisting Advice Giving
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.
It’s Kind of Like Coaching Poolside or Chairside; Coaching In The Moment or Another Time
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.
It’s Kind of Like Elastic Band Coaching; Stretch, Aim, Release
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.
It’s Kind of Like Using a Flashlight in the Dark; Coaching for Clarity and Ownership
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.
Coach or Consultant: Who is doing most of the talking?
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.
It’s Kind of Like Giving the Quarterback a Pillow; Unfair Leadership is Fair Leadership
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.
It’s Kind of Like Relay Team Performance; Navigating Handoffs for Full Team Performance
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.
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