You Should Spend More Time on Coaching

That's what they say.

Photo by The Space

“You should spend more time coaching your team and coworkers.” If you are in a leading position, you might have heard this before.

There is hype around coaching. People say they coach. Yet, not everyone can coach.

Coaching can be useful because it helps people use their skills, acquire new ones, and motivate them to reach their goals. It sounds amazing, but managers are often left alone in their coaching endeavors.

So, leaders end up thinking they coach while in fact they micromanage, supervise, or train instead. Coaching is not about you sharing your experience and best practice. It is not about giving them orders.

Coaching is a structured dialog full of open questions and listening.

Therefore, your coachee determines the direction and sets goals. Your role is to support coachees, ask questions they have not considered, and open new horizons in which they could use their skills and interests. You hold them accountable, but do not blame them for failures.

For coaching my…