The Manager As A Coach
Author: Ninive Badilescu

In an effort to attract and retain talent, companies are employing new approaches to managing their employees. More and more we see a shift towards offering employees the opportunity to achieve professional growth through self-awareness, clear and detailed career plans and a coaching management style approach.

Sean McPheat , CEO of the Executive Coaching Studio describes the Coaching Management Style as: “Directed towards professional growth of employees. Manager focuses on helping employees identify their strengths and weaknesses, improvement areas and set development plans that foster career goals. (The) manager creates an environment that supports honest self-assessment and treats mistakes as learning opportunities in the development process.”

When acting as a coach, the manager has to remember that coaching should be a continuous process. As such he/she should avoid employing it solely for dealing with an acute problem. While coaching can deal with the odd issue such as: absenteeism, low productivity, etc, managers should use coaching as part of their talent management activities.

All managers who successfully use coaching as a management style base their actions on a few principles/beliefs:

Know your employee: the more you know your employee the easier it will be to help them on the path to self-awareness. Knowing their strengths and weaknesses will pave the way to better development planning increased performance on the job, job satisfaction and recognition. All these translate into a happier and more loyal employee.

Listen: the managers successful in employing a coaching management style have great listening skills. It is more important to listen and understand the other person than it is to think of immediate solutions. These managers listen to what it is said and also to what is it left out. Sometimes discovering what is not put into words holds the key to a successful coaching session.

Ensure commitment: both parties (manager and employee) have to be fully committed to the process. Lack of commitment on either side will result in failure. The International Coach Academy has introduced the term UAC which stands for Underlying Automatic Commitments. According to this principle people are always committed to something whether it is something beneficial or not, whether on a conscious or unconscious level. Therefore our experiences are based on what we are committed to at the time and on our core individual commitments. Developing and ensuring commitment to the coaching process will result in a successful coaching process.

Offer structure: a successful coaching program needs a cohesive structure. Building appropriate structures is sometimes half of the work offering the work frame for the process, ease of results monitoring and clear parameters to work with.

Inspire trust: a coaching relationship cannot exist without trust. The employee should feel supported, enthused and safe in his/her coaching relationship. There are no shortcuts for this. Lack of trust will lead to lack of communication, lack of commitment and ultimately failure.

Don’t judge: a good coach is non-judgemental. The manager as a coach should avoid judging. A safe and supportive coaching environment cannot be built on judgements.

Give feedback: feedback should be neither positive nor negative but simply state facts. While you would be happy to have your client read positive feedback in your praise you do not want to imply criticism when the feedback can be seen as negative. Stick to the facts and they will send the right message.

Follow-up: following up on results reinforces commitment and creates the right environment for continuous improvement. There are no substitutes to a consistent and structured follow-up. Be fair, be consistent, be open and supportive in your follow-up and the changes will follow.







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Ninive Badilescu CPC, the founder of UAchieve Coaching, is an Executive & Career Success Coach specialised in helping individuals achieve excellence in their jobs through the design and implementation of successful career strategies. A successful outcome is based on careful planning, consistent action, timely feedback and continuous improvement. Ninive can help make your journey easier, faster and more fulfilling. For information on her programs and to receive a FREE Career Assessment please visit her website at: http://www.uachievecoaching.com or send her an email: ninive@uachievecoaching.com.

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