Managers as Coach

In the 1980’s Sir John Whitmore was pioneer in introducing the concept of coaching for organizations. His work was focussed on developing the methodology, concepts, and techniques for performance improvement in organizations and showed it was possible to improve performance, increase learning and enjoyment, and find a sense of purpose in work.

From those days to now, coaching has evolved as a function and is used for diversified areas and is not just limited to performance. However, companies are still increasingly turning to coaching skills, to develop talent, increase the utility of employees to develop others, and helping employees to reach their full performance potential.

Manager as a role also has evolved over the years, it is no longer the one just ensuring work completion, but is someone who is enabling a high-performance work culture within the team. To better enable managers to achieve this, organizations are moving towards having “managers as coach “. Coaching skills can support a manager in helping the team to achieve it’s goals by – taking ownership, being aware of strengths, team collaboration.

Top Reasons for manager using coaching skills

1. Leadership Development Strategy
2. Improve Teamwork
3. Better Communication Skills
4. Better Decision Making abilities
5. Increase Productivity
6. Increase Employee Engagement

While we have established the benefits of having managers as coach for the team, if we look deeper into the definitions of each role it might sound conflicting. A managers role is often prescriptive and focusing on the task at hand, and a coach on the other hand is more exploratory in his approach and not prescriptive at all. How does one keep balance between the two?

One way to look at, it’s not one style over the other- it’s a collaboration of the two. Coaching as a skill is added for a manager, to better enable him to foster a culture of growth and engagement in the team. Depending on the point in time requirement it may get flavors of mentoring and direction in the discussion. As a coach, manager will become more self-aware and approach dynamic team situations with a different lens. Coaching is not about replacing the managerial skills but about further enabling the manager to grow with the team.