Coaching leadership is defined, among other ways, as follows:
Coaching leadership is a leadership style where the supervisor or leader acts as a coach, helping employees to develop, achieve their goals, and improve their performance.
This leadership style focuses more on guiding, listening, and asking questions rather than traditional authoritarian leadership, where the supervisor gives instructions and makes decisions on behalf of the employees.
In coaching leadership, the key is supporting employees’ self-direction and learning. The supervisor helps employees find their own solutions to problems, identify their strengths and areas for development, and set goals and create plans to achieve them. The aim is to increase employees’ engagement, motivation, and ability to take responsibility for their own work.
A coaching leadership style does not require certification, training, or any initial investment. Anyone can start using a coaching leadership style right away and learn by doing, as long as they keep the definition and methods in mind.
A Coaching Form to Help Achieve Goals
I have personally received coaching leadership from my supervisors since 2004, at varying levels. I have been using the coaching leadership method as a coach and supervisor since 2005.
Based on this extensive experience, I strongly recommend taking the following steps to kickstart coaching leadership and begin seeing results, often within six months:
- Clarify the company’s strategy and goals on an individual level within your team, if this hasn’t already been done.
- Analyze what practical actions your team members can take to achieve their goals. This is to help you, as a supervisor, better understand whether the goals are realistic and approximately how long it will take to achieve them.
- Create a discussion template for coaching sessions, taking the above points into consideration. Design the template with goals in mind, but also pay attention to individual well-being and capacity.
- The purpose of the discussion template is to guide conversations in coaching sessions toward actions that the employee can take to either change their approach or further strengthen what they are already doing well.
- Regularly collect feedback by openly asking for it, and remember to provide feedback consistently as well. Without feedback, it is more difficult to improve.
Download the Coaching Form Template
If you wish, you can download the Coaching Form Template from the bottom of the page, which you can use in your own leadership work. This template focuses on the following areas:
- Improving the well-being and resilience of the employee (the coachee).
- Work performance, reviewing successes and frustrations.
- Achieving performance goals by guiding the discussion on what the employee can practically do and how the supervisor can concretely assist.
- Going through feedback, both ways.
Why does the coaching form matter?
- It steers the conversation away from unnecessary complaints to concrete issues that both the employee and the supervisor can influence.
- It provides clear guidelines and action-oriented goals that help achieve the company’s objectives.
- It brings peace of mind to everyone, as regular discussions focus on issues that impact work performance.
- It enables the achievement of performance goals for employees, your team, your unit, and even the entire company.
