The Challenge of Coaching

It would probably be agreed that every situation facing a leader encourages the choice between acting in terms of what he or she is wanting to get or what it is possible to contribute. Members of the leader’s team experience the same choice. By acting with the first option in mind, the outcome may feel satisfying, but ultimately creates stagnation. It is only through acting benevolently that change, and therefore growth, is assured. The challenge in coaching is to keep direct reports in a state of constant, incremental, change, and therefore growth, even when they might not always immediately understand the value of further personal stretch. Growth can sometimes be difficult, even painful, and may require confronting one’s own weaknesses, whether as a coach or as a coachee. Leadership is about the relentless polishing and refining of the self and others in order to achieve excellence, so it is the journey that takes precedence and not the destination. One never actually arrives.

A manager may be more concerned with the bottom line and be satisfied if direct reports perform reasonably well, using them as a means to achieve his or her own reasonable results, rather than pursuing excellence. Opportunities for positive change are thereby missed and mediocrity is maintained. The leader who coaches staff is challenged to create an understanding in them that they are the product, a team of individuals who continually strive for excellence in themselves, thus resulting in improving standards and performance.

In practical terms, the coach is challenged to identify where there is room for improvement in each of his/her direct reports and to convince them of the need to change. This may present an additional challenge should there be some resistance to change, and the leader may need to determine the reason for this resistance and to overcome it, in order to set the staff member on a path towards excellence.

However, coaching is an ongoing process and the leader will be challenged to engage in regular and timely conversations to identify what has indeed been working well and where people may need additional guidance. A further challenge would be to provide appropriate assistance, which would focus on helping each coachee to become more self-aware and to find their own solutions to any issues that have arisen.

In this article we are going to briefly address some of the coaching challenges through an idealized dialogue:

Sam: Hi Coach. Now that my team is performing so much better after the coaching I have been carrying out, I am wondering if my job as coach is done now. Can I leave them to it and get on with other things? I have found the coaching to be quite time consuming and I have so much other stuff to do.

Mary: Sam, your job as coach will never be over! I have regular monthly one-on-one meetings with my people and although some of those meetings are shorter than others, there is always something that everyone could be doing better. It’s the same with our manager, Sam, we inevitably have issues to work on, don’t we? I have found out so much about myself as a person that I didn’t know. And not only through the coaching sessions with our manager, also through conversations I’ve had with my people. For instance, I realised how often I made assumptions about what they were thinking or feeling and how way off some of those conclusions were. Now I try to remember to check out my assumptions with them, but it’s a work in progress and I still don’t get it right every time.

Coach: What Mary says is absolutely the case, Sam. We are all works in progress and your challenge as a leader and as a coach is to be continually striving for excellence and encouraging your team members to do the same.

Sam: But surely there’s an end point out there somewhere when no more can be achieved? Besides, some of my people would need to become much more effective in some areas or to learn completely new skills to move to the next level, and they aren’t all willing to make that commitment.

Coach: Of course you will find some people who really don’t want to accept the challenges, and that’s one of your challenges, to identify those who could be doing more but are getting in their own way and those who have realistic constraints, like age or education. Part of your role as coach is to help people discover how they are holding themselves back and what they need to do differently in order to grow further. Even those who, for instance, are close to retirement, can almost always be doing something more successfully.

Mary: It is a real challenge with some people, Coach, especially those who have a negative view of growth and see it as extra work or additional responsibility they don’t want.

Coach: Absolutely! And that’s where the challenge comes in, to turn that mind-set around. You might not always get it right with everyone initially, but I can guarantee that as you and some of their team members set the example, even the most doubting will begin to see the light.

Sam: So you are saying I just have to find the time for coaching?

Coach: Leadership is a face to face activity, Sam, whether you are out there watching the game, and picking up where things could be done better, or whether you are holding team meetings or individual coaching sessions. You are always choosing where it is opportune to offer feedback, where you could be contributing to the growth and development of others. Managing your time to enable you to do this effectively is part of the challenge. Where should you be doing the work yourself, and where should you be empowering others to do it? Do you have too many people in your team to give them sufficient time or do you just need to be more organised yourself?

Sam: Time management is exactly what my manager says he wants me to improve on!

Mary: And it’s becoming excellent as a time manager that’s the challenge you have to face up to, Sam, not avoiding it by reducing your time coaching your people!

Sam: Mmm…I think you may be right, Mary, wanting to avoid making the time for coaching is about me getting in my own way of becoming a better time manager…that’s an interesting insight…thank you guys!

To explore more issues around coaching or leadership, you might want to visit our “Coaching On the Go” application or our website for additional information.