The Importance of Management Coaching

When you think of coach­ing, what comes to mind? Most likely, you auto­mat­i­cally think of some­one lead­ing their sports team to a cham­pi­onship, right? Now, while a coach is some­one we often asso­ciate with sports, coaches are also man­agers and men­tors in the work­place, guid­ing us to our own pro­fes­sional victory.

Coach­ing is one of the great­est things a man­ager can do for his or her employ­ees, yet it’s often over­looked. The rea­son for this is that many man­agers may feel like they do not have time to coach, or that their employ­ees are doing fine, so there’s no need to coach. While this may seem log­i­cal, the truth is that there is always a need for coaching.

To put it into per­spec­tive, think about your favorite sports team for a minute. Where would that team be if they did not have their coach? What would they do if they didn’t have their coach encour­ag­ing and direct­ing them? For starters, the team, even though each mem­ber is tal­ented, would prob­a­bly feel a lit­tle lost or mis­di­rected. They would prob­a­bly just do what­ever they thought was right, because no one was around to tell them any dif­fer­ent. This is exactly what hap­pens when there’s a team or depart­ment at work with­out a man­ager coach­ing them.

Coach­ing is vital to the suc­cess of the com­pany and to each team or depart­ment. It is through coach­ing that man­agers con­nect with their employ­ees, because it is through coach­ing that they show how much they care. Man­agers show they care by prais­ing employ­ees for what they do right, and they show they care by help­ing employ­ees get on the right track when their per­for­mance is not up to par.

Coach­ing isn’t easy, but it is essen­tial. When it comes to coach­ing, there are a few things to keep in mind:

• Praise good work often and use pos­i­tive language.
• Coach as soon as you see or hear the behav­ior tak­ing place.
• Give spe­cific feed­back on behav­ior and performance.
• Treat all employ­ees fairly.
• Lead by example.
• Let your employ­ees know that you care.
• Make coach­ing a priority.

Since find­ing the time seems to be a com­mon obsta­cle to good coach­ing, it’s impor­tant that man­agers don’t view coach­ing as an addi­tion to their job. In real­ity, coach­ing is their job. With man­agers being in very vis­i­ble and influ­en­tial posi­tions, they have the abil­ity to lead their teams to vic­tory, or let their teams fall. No mat­ter how big or small a team may be, the prac­tice of man­age­ment coach­ing is critical.

Coach­ing Tip

It’s a good idea for man­agers to keep track of how often they praise their employ­ees. One way to do this is to start each week with a tally sheet con­tain­ing each employee’s name. This will make it easy for man­agers to note—with a sim­ple tick or tally mark—each time they praise an employee through­out the week. At the end of the week, this infor­mal “praise report” will yield valu­able data about the manager’s coach­ing efforts. This tally sheet will also help to make prais­ing become a habit!