Coaching Leadership Skills

by Seth Sinclair

In my last post, I discussed six leadership styles identified by psychologist and writer Daniel J. Goleman, with a particular focus on coaching leadership style.  In this post, I will go into detail on the four tools a coaching leader requires to be successful. 

A coaching leader guides his or her employees through a learning process.  This process begins by creating awareness, which involves helping the employee identify and gain clarity on their strengths, weaknesses, and goals.  The coaching leader builds on this by helping the employee explore what is possible and then commit to taking action. 

The result of this process is that the employee learns from the experience and develops independent critical thinking skills.  Some of the specific skills a coaching leader uses to foster this approach are listening, asking powerful questions, direct communication, and designing actions. 

The first skill, listening—is essential to developing trust.  Most people don’t listen very well, but listening is a skill that can be practiced and learned.

The three levels of listening include:

1)    Self-focused listening, in which people may hear the words of others, but are primarily aware of their own feelings, and are really paying attention to their own interior dialogue.  They are thinking about themselves, not the person they are listening to.  Self-focused listeners relate everything back to themselves, interrupt frequently, and make quick judgments.  They hear, but don’t really listen.

2)   Attentive listening, in which the listener’s full attention is focused on what the other person is saying, and on their nuances and gestures as well.  Attentive listeners ask clarifying questions, paraphrase what others are saying to ensure they understand, and are curious about the opinions of others.

3)   Empathetic listening, in which the listener puts himself or herself “In the shoes” of the person he or she is listening to.  Listeners at this level pay attention to non-verbal cues such as tone, volume, body language, and energy level.  They are fully present in the conversation, and are comfortable with silence.

Coaching leaders must strive to at least demonstrate Attentive listening with a goal of more consistently becoming an Empathetic listener.  This is because the effectiveness of the coaching leadership style is rooted in trust and understanding.  Additionally, a Coaching leader must be curious about an employee’s motivation and perspective in order to create awareness; and empathetic listening is essential to developing this level of understanding. 

The second tool a coaching leader needs is the ability to ask powerful questions.  Powerful questions are questions that make the person who is required to answer them think and reflect before answering. 

Powerful questions generate curiosity, bring underlying assumptions to the surface, invite people to be creative, and move discussions forward.  Most importantly, they evoke additional questions from the listener.

Questions like “what is possible?” challenge the way things have always been done.  “What might we think about this five years from now?,” encourages others to take the long view of a situation.  “What would happen if we did this differently?” is another way to get people to think out of the box. 

Powerful questions are solution focused.  They examine possibilities, are forward looking, and facilitate action.  They promote ownership of problems and solutions.  They do not call for quick, easy, answers—and if an answer comes right away, it’s likely the question really wasn’t a powerful one!

When the coaching leader and employee identify an opportunity or challenge to explore, they use powerful questions to explore assumptions, hone in on the heart of the matter, clarify priorities, and generate forward movement.  This is especially useful when the employee is working through an issue that they have been “stuck” on for a while.  Well placed powerful questions may generate new levels of thinking and unlock previously unidentified courses of action.

Direct communication is a third skill coaching leaders practice.  Coaching leaders should strive to be clear, articulate, appropriate, and respectful..  Such direct communication minimizes confusion and leaves little room for interpretation.  In the context of coaching leadership, it is essential that the leader use direct communication when providing feedback, recommending action, and challenging the employee to commit to action.

An effective coaching leader will get to the essence of the communication instead of getting caught up in long, distracting stories (bottom lining); they set aside preoccupations such as the constant pinging of emails in order to be fully present in conversation (clearing); they address significant actions taken by the person with whom they are speaking (acknowledgement); they make others stretch and make commitment (challenging); and they don’t let people who are fooling themselves continue to do so (intruding).

Finally, coaching leaders look to move employees towards action.  They accomplish this by working with employees to co-design specific plans and then help them evaluate the plan to ensure it is realistic and comprehensive.  As part of this conversation the coaching leader may ask the employee to assess his or her role in the action, , consider risks they might face; help the employee prepare for resistance from others; and identify ways to get and provide feedback to foster progress and learning. 

A key to this approach is allowing the employee to own the ideas and do the heavy lifting in moving forward with actions; the coaching leader’s role is help set a foundation that will maximize the employee’s chance at being successful.   Regardless of the specific outcome, the coaching leader will provide constant feedback and support in hopes of advancing the employee’s learning process.

Will a coaching leadership style work in your organization?  If you’d like to give it a try, I encourage you to revisit the factors that lead to success (curiosity, confidence, emotional intelligence, and patience) to assess your personal readiness.  From there, test it out with a small group of employees who are receptive to suggestions for improvement and are willing to put in the work to learn and grow.