The Manager as a Coach
Posted on April 10, 2024 by Martin Hahn, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
This article discusses the characteristics of coaching in organizations undertaken by managers.
Coaching enables managers to provide motivation, structure and
effective feedback as long as managers have the required skills
and commitment. As coaches, good managers believe that people can
succeed and that they can contribute to their success. They can
identify what people need to be able to do to improve their
performance. They have to see this as an important part of the
role which an enabling, empowering process which focuses on
learning requirements.
How to coach
Coaching is a personal (usually one-to-one), on-the-job approach
used by managers and trainers to help people develop their skills
and levels of competence. Manager are there to get
results through people; this means that managers have a personal
responsibility for ensuring that they acquire and develop the
skills they need. Other people in the shape of coaching, training
and management development specialists may help, but because
by far the best way of learning is on the job, the onus is mainly on
the managers.
The need for coaching may arise from formal or informal
performance reviews but opportunities for coaching will emerge
during normal day-to-day activities. Every time managers delegate a
new task to someone, a coaching opportunity is created to help
the individual learn any new skills or techniques which are
needed to do the job. Every time managers provide feedback to an
individual after a task has been completed, there is an
opportunity to help that individual do better next time.
Aims
The aims of coaching are to:
■ help people to become aware of how well they are doing,
where they need to improve and what they need to learn;
■ put controlled delegation into practice; in other words,
managers can delegate new tasks or enlarged areas of work,
provide guidance as necessary on how the tasks or work
should be carried out and monitor performance in doing the
work;
■ get managers and individuals to use whatever situations
arise as learning opportunities;
■ enable guidance to be provided on how to carry out specific
tasks as necessary, but always on the basis of helping people
to learn rather than spoon-feeding them with instructions on
what to do and how to do it.
The Coaching Sequence
Coaching can be carried out in the following stages:
1. Identify the areas of knowledge, skills or capabilities where
learning needs to take place to qualify people to carry out the
task, provide for continuous development, enhance
transferable skills or improve performance.
2. Ensure that the person understands and accepts the need to
learn.
3. Discuss with the person what needs to be learnt and the best
way to undertake the learning.
4. Get the person to work out how they can manage their own
learning while identifying where they will need help from
a manager or someone else.
5. Provide encouragement and advice to the person in
pursuing the self-learning program.
6. Provide specific guidance as required where the person
needs your help.
7. Agree how progress should be monitored and reviewed.
Coaching Skills
Coaching can only work with the willing participation of both
learners and managers. It also requires an open and trusting relation-
ship between the coach and the learner, and senior management
support. Coaches may need special training in the skills required,
they should be given specific responsibility for coaching, and their
role needs to be suitably rewarded. Learning should be an explicit
target of coaching along with others more directly related to the tasks
being carried out. Finally, any system of coaching should be regularly
monitored and evaluated.
Effective Coaching
Coaching will be most effective when:
■ The coach understands that his or her role is to help people
to learn.
■ Individuals are motivated to learn and they should be aware
that their present level of knowledge or skill, or their
behavior needs to be improved if they are going to perform their
work to their own and to others’ satisfaction.
■ Individuals are given guidance on what they should be
learning and feedback on how they are doing.
■ Learning is an active, not a passive, process and individuals
need to be actively involved with their coach.
■ The coach listens to individuals to understand what they
want and need.
■ The coach adopts a constructive approach, building on
strengths and experience.
