10 Coaching Techniques All Managers Need

The most effective leaders share one secret to their success—it is their employees.

Aside from managing projects and delegating tasks, a successful manager will know the importance of developing their employees’ skills.

The more trained and capable the workers are, the more successful your department will be.

Focus on developing the following 10 coaching skills to become an excellent leader with loyal and capable staff:

1) Listening

The most important skill to effective coaching is the ability to listen to others.

It’s vital for managers to understand that coaching is not about the coach, but rather about those that they are coaching. It doesn’t matter which coaching model you use, if you’re not an effective listener then you’re going to struggle as a coach.

As such, it is important to focus on your people and listen to their thoughts, needs and concerns to structure the most effective coaching sessions.

2) Asking open-ended questions

To be on the same page with your employees about their comprehension and interest in the topic at hand, coaches need to master the ability of asking open-ended questions.

You need to get your people talking and the only way to achieve this is through asking open-ended questions which require more than a one-word answer! Our Coaching Skills Training focuses a lot of time on questioning skills because they are so important.

3) Collaboration

Leaders must know how to work effectively together with their employees, and thereby teach them to work collaboratively together.

Learning about how your team thinks and finding strategies that promote group learning is highly advantageous when it comes to effective coaching, and it also helps you to boost team morale as well.

4) Making good use of time

Coaching is just one of the many tasks that a manager will be responsible for.

While a coaching session will typically last a couple of hours or days at most, the coach must be able to make good use of this limited time in order for it to be effective.

5) Establishing teams

The manager must be able to create and motivate successful teams for a positive corporate culture and a productive workplace environment.

Teaching your employees about the importance of communication, respect, collaboration, and empathy will go a long way in forming teams from individual employees. Team Building Training will help with this but it’s what you do daily that matters most.

6) Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EQ) describes the ability to understand the feelings of others, and properly react to them.

Coaching sessions can be stressful and frightening for employees, and managers must have the skills to calm them down and make them feel certain in their abilities.

Today, EQ is covered on almost all Management Training that we deliver and a good place start in terms of your self-awareness in this topic is by taking a Disc Assessment which will provide you with a personalised report of your strengths and areas of development.

7) Communication

Another vital skill is the ability to voice your opinion clearly and informatively for others to understand what you’re trying to say.

It also involves learning which communication styles work best for employees, such as verbal, non-verbal, or visual. Interpersonal skills for managers are vital.

8) Setting SMART goals

Every coaching session needs clear objectives, otherwise the employees will walk away feeling confused.

A manager must know how to set SMART, measurable and time-bound goals to make the employees accountable for the learning process. Setting goals and objectives are not something that is left just for Appraisal Training, instead, learn about them and use them each day to provide clarity and focus.

9) Good judgement

There are many things that a leader may want to impart on their employees; however time and resources often limit that desire.

A manager must consider if the training session is valuable to the employees and consistent with the company’s vision and goals.

10) Follow through

A coach’s job is never done so follow through with actions and drive your employees on. The ideal manager possesses excellent coaching skills and these are transferable into any role now and in the future so it pays long term dividends for you to continually improve them.

Our Management Development Programme can help you to be an outstanding coach. It will help you to coach in the moment as well as formal sit-down sessions. There’s more to coaching than just the grow coaching model. You need a unique set of skills to ensure that each session is focused, on-point and delivers the results that you desire.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Training