Coaching is an invaluable skill for today's leaders, as it helps team members become more self-reliant and autonomous while providing them with the opportunity to identify and solve problems. It also creates a motivating and stimulating environment that encourages employees to reach their peak performance. In short, coaching is an essential skill that all managers must develop and use. However, mastering the art of coaching is not easy.
It requires a combination of three core skills: listening like a coach, thinking like a coach, and talking like a coach. Listening is the most important part of coaching, as it allows the other person to reflect and evaluate. Asking questions is also essential, as it encourages the other person to think about their answers. Finally, talking like a coach involves providing employees with the information they need to be successful. By training employees, managers can better equip their team to be productive and free up their own time.
This regular feedback is the vital element of training people along learning curves, that is, training to acquire competence. Therefore, managers can incorporate coaching into regular conversations with employees. Gregg Thompson from Third Factor simplifies the training process by sharing the three most important training skills that leading coaches must master: listening, thinking, and talking like a coach. By incorporating these skills into daily conversations with employees, managers will end up training their team members to be more productive.
