How Do Coaches Help?

How Do Coaches Help?

External Link: https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4574314487193895552#editor/target=post;postID=5884130132577284132

Date: December 6, 2016

To be an executive coach, it is necessary to know that clients are the first and best expert capable of solving their own problems and achieving their own ambitions, that is precisely the main reason why clients are motivated to call on a coach. When clients bring important issues to a coach, they already made a complete inventory of their personal or professional issues and of all possible options. Clients have already tried working out their issues alone, and have not succeeded.  The following questions are answered as part of the material read from the references below.  The answers are based upon the ideas presented in those documents.

Given the statement above what is it that coaches do to provide value to their clients?

Coaches need to be good communicators, adept at human psychology, and good facilitators of solutions.  With communication, a good coach needs to be able to listen and ask the proper questions that will elicit further information about a topic.  They avoid close ended questions that shut off dialogue.  With the human psychology element, a good coach knows how to read people and dialogue with them to maximum effect.  Many people who are called “people persons” have a natural ability to do this.  Reading people requires delving into external issues that may be affecting the immediate issue without offending that person.  A good facilitator will be able to guide the discussion of an issue towards an optimal solution.

Establishing trust and credibility are important as well.  That is because a coach will tend to provide constructive feedback that may or may not be accepted positively.  A trusted coach with credibility will have an easier time providing constructive feedback that may be resisted on a human emotional level.

Why is coaching a vital aspect of both leadership and strategy?

Coaching behavior is important for an organizations strategy because in makes an investment in individuals in the hope that this investment will pay off long-term dividends for the organization.  In other words, you are developing your future leaders on one hand, and in the other you are formulating a long-term health strategy for your organization.  An organization that actively develops its future leaders is practicing long-term strategy without naming it so.  The additional benefit to the coaching ensures that lines of communication are open, feedback loops are established, and the organization’s goals are known from top to bottom.  Therefore, when the coached individuals attain leader status, they are already dialed in on the direction of the organization.  This includes short term tactics as well as an overall long-term strategy.

How can it make a difference in an organization?

Coaching can make a difference in an organization in two ways.  First, the organization is investing in its people and nurturing the future leaders of that organization.  This requires the current crop of leaders to be enlightened and view this as a long-term investment that will pay off for the organization.  Second, it can have the effect of changing the culture within an organization and prevent it from having bad employee management relations.  Most employees will respond positively to management if they feel that they care about them and their welfare.  An effective coaching program sends those types of positive signals.

What does this mean to you and your organization?

Coach the safety officers and various artisans by selling them on the why, telling them the what, involve them on the how/what, and devolve them by leaving the details to them.

I have identified several people within my organization that deserve an investment of time for coaching so that they can grow into the future leaders of the Corpus Christi Army Depot (CCAD).

References:

Goleman, D. (2000). Leadership that Gets Results, Harvard Business Review, 78(2), 78-90.

von Hoffman, C. (1999). Coaching: The ten killer myths, Harvard Management Update, 4(1), 4.

Obolensky, Nick. (2016) Complex Adaptive Leadership Second Edition, New York: Routledge.

John H2O