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What Is Leader-Coaching?

We define leader-coaching as formal or informal conversations between the leader-coach (you) and learners (usually your direct reports) with the intention of producing positive changes in the direct reports’ workplace behaviors. For practical purposes, it is about helping your direct reports determine which changes in behavior they would find beneficial, exploring options for how to get there, and providing them with opportunities to experience situations in which they can try out the new behaviors and receive the feedback and support they need to continue to learn and develop.

Some leaders acknowledge that coaching is important and that they spend part of their time coaching their people. Other leaders remain unclear on what it means to coach the individuals they manage and how coaching aligns with and expands on performance development conversations.

So what does coaching look like? Many people have experienced what it is like to be coached in nonwork contexts, whether in sports, music, drama, or dance. In these settings, the coaches generally use their expertise to help their protégés develop better skills. Understandably, leaders use this expert-oriented approach in the work they do with their people. Although this is a necessary and important aspect of being an effective leader, it is not sufficient to maximize the performance of your people over time.

To do that, you will need to wear a different hat, one that relies less on your functional expertise and more on your ability to engage people in a way that challenges their thinking and enables them to stop, reflect, question assumptions, and reevaluate perceived constraints.

This inquiry-based approach to coaching builds the capacity of your people to engage in critical thinking and problem solving and helps them to become more agile learners.

The duality of the leader’s role is illustrated in Figure 1. Leaders manage the performance of their direct reports with an outside-in approach focused on the issue at hand and relying on their expertise. They manage the development of their direct reports with an inside-out coaching approach focused on the direct reports and the way they behave and think.

Figure 1. Double Duty for Leaders

The Importance of Leader-Coaching

The following story is one example of how valuable a leader-coach approach can be.

Sharon, a manager who had been practicing her newly acquired coaching skills, came to appreciate how important coaching was for her and her team. Bernard, a supervisor who was one of Sharon’s direct reports, came to her office one day and wanted to discuss his workload and the challenges he faced with his team. Bernard had great expertise in his functional area and had always prided himself on being excellent at what he did. He wanted to have the best-performing team in the company and was working hard to make that happen. He expressed frustration that he was working much longer hours than other supervisors to ensure his team produced high-quality work.