Essential Leadership Coaching Skills To Help Employees Achieve Success

The ability to train and coach employees is a requirement for anyone who considers themselves a leader. You cannot be a leader without the ability to lead, and therefore coach, others. If you are a manager, these skills are particularly crucial for success in your field. Thankfully, you can develop and improve the leadership coaching skills required to further your career. Start brushing up on the skills below as soon as you can.

Listening Skills

Oftentimes, experts tout the importance communication skills and public speaking. But in fact, listening skills are much more crucial for leadership coaching. When you listen to your employees, you will be able to gather more information about their strengths and struggles. This will help you become a better leader. You will be better able to identify the best strategies to help each and every team member succeed. In order to be an effective leader, you have to listen to know how to coach each and every team member in the unique manner that they require for success.

Ability To Ask The Right Questions

Communication is also important – particularly the ability to ask the right leading questions that guide team members to where they need to be. Effective leadership coaching is not about just imparting knowledge to your employees. It is about enabling workers to acquire that knowledge on their own. This provides a much more meaningful learning experience, which helps with retention and comprehension. The best leaders and coaches ask the right question that help them understand where team members are struggling. They ask the questions that guide team member understanding to the place they want it to go. Far too few coaches have this ability, so you would be wise to try to improve your questioning skills as a manager.

Empathy

The best coaches, leaders and managers demonstrate empathy for their employees. Leadership coaching is not just about driving results. It is also about having the ability to connect with your team, separate and apart from their job responsibilities. Real leaders can connect with their team by providing understanding and a judgement-free relationship. The best leaders provide a judgement-free decision support system to their employees when they need it. This makes your team respect and appreciate you, which makes them much easier to manage and coach.

Ability To Deliver Great Feedback

Your ability to deliver helpful feedback in a manner in which it is well-received is crucial for strong leadership coaching skills. Feedback is a necessary part of the coaching process. Without the right feedback, employees will not be able to grow and improve in the company. It is not just about what you say, however. It is about how you say it too. Unclear or demeaning feedback will do more harm than good. Instead, you must deliver relevant, helpful feedback in a manner that is positive and encouraging. This is a leadership skill that takes time and practice to improve. The sooner you start to develop these leadership coaching skills, the sooner your team members will experience success.

The Right Focus

As a leadership coach, you should always maintain focus on the employee, not the issue they are experiencing. Strong leaders know that the person matters more than the problem. This fosters a meaningful connection between mentor and mentee, coach and student and manager and protege. It allows you to provide solutions or to help guide team members toward devising their own solutions. This will only prove to further the team member’s progression and development towards success. It ensures that they stay just as invested in realizing success as you, their coach, are.

Many managers are ineffective leaders and coaches. That is because too many supervisors simply do not have the leadership skills or coaching skills that team management requires. Thankfully, you have the opportunity to improve your own leadership coaching skills. Just brush up on the areas necessary for effective coaching detailed above and instill an attitude of gratitude in yourself and your team. Your team’s success will be proof of your experts.

Photo from https://www.talentmap.com/one-on-one-meetings-with-employees/