[10]

Coach for Performance

WE BRIEFLY MENTIONED this concept, but developing leadership is like developing a skilled athlete. Quite simply, most people need to practice to become world-class. They also need coaching. Clear expectations and goals are only the first step. Next, your team needs a supervisor who “coaches” performance on a consistent basis. If you are hoping to develop leadership capacity in those around you, sporadic and haphazard coaching is quite an absurd approach when one looks at this prospect logically. What if aspiring gymnasts received the same amount of token coaching? What would their skill levels be? Certainly not Olympic caliber. Some supervisors may say that they don’t have time. We would argue that managers need to make time. After all, how much time could be saved if your team members were “Olympians”? What if your organization had team members with one-third more skill and leadership ability? We know managers can create better leaders within their departments. We’ve seen it happen.

However, there must be some intentionality behind the development. You can increase your team’s level of output just as coaches can increase the output of their teams. Of course, all managers have some people with natural ability along with others who need to work at developing their skills.

There are many coaching models. We suggest keeping it simple:

Set clear expectations and stretch goals.

Challenge and support.

Monitor performance.

Provide coaching/feedback in small, concrete chunks.

Follow up consistently and repeat the process.