The Impact of Coaching Skills on Leadership

Author: Bruno Raynal

As a leader, you know that management and coaching are synonymous. If you aren't focused on regularly coaching your team, you're probably not leading them as effectively as possible and an even better chance your sales are suffering as a result. Coaching creates an environment that naturally enhances collaboration, increases productivity, improves performance, and boosts morale.
There are many coaching skills that impact your ability to successfully lead your team. Here are a few of those skills:

• Problem solving: This plays a huge role in being an effective leader. Your team looks to you in a time of crisis—small or large—to take decisive, immediate action. Whether or not they buy-in to your decisions and follow your lead has everything to do with their respect for you. Gain that, and you will have a loyal team that trusts in your ability to solve problems before they can become disasters.
• Upholding accountability: This skill is important if you want to make sure employees take responsibility for both their individual productivity and team performance. You make employees accountable when they understand exactly what their roles are, the goals of the company, and the consequences of not achieving those goals. Accountability is a skill that makes it easier to make informed decisions about staffing.
• Encouragement: This is an underrated and often overlooked coaching skill. You don't need to look any further than a football coach for a model—always telling his team they can do it, always believing in them. Coaching is about building people up. This isn't to say that a coach doesn't get upset. Of course he does. But a good coach tells the team that they are better than how they performed, and how they can achieve better results next time.
• Staying positive: This one naturally follows the skill of encouragement. Coaching requires a positive approach to every situation. It is nearly impossible to solve problems or be encouraging with a gloomy outlook. A positive coach holds employees accountable with the right attitude, is a better problem solver, and provides encouragement how and when it is needed so the company's goals can be achieved.

It has been said that great coaches are made, not born. It's true. Leadership can be learned and, in fact, must be learned for a manager to be successful. No amount of education and foresight can replace experience. Success relies heavily on a manager's ability to set achievable goals, develop action plans, connect with employees, read situations quickly, and motivate employees to get the job done.
Managing and coaching need to be viewed as coexisting behaviors. Succeed at one and you'll succeed at the other. Your personal performance—your leadership—can have a huge impact on your team's performance. Lead by example and motivate your team to follow you to achieve even greater success for your organization.

See what other skills are important to more effectively lead your team and learn more about ways to develop your leadership skills by visiting www.ThinkBlueThinking.com.

Posted in: Leadership