Manager as a coach, or the opposite magnetic poles
Many companies believe that coaching abilities should be a must in a leader’s every day hand bag. So many team managers end up in coaching “skills” trainings. But coaching your team members requires time, while what most managers need today is at the opposite pole. They need more directivity, better communication skills and the ability to maintain a stable high energy in their team.
When Peter was promoted as a manager, there were many other people with more experience than him in the team. So he strived very much to enter his new role. At the beginning, because he was younger than others, he had been challenged and received few confirmations.
The company he was working for sent him to a “manager as a coach” training, where he had been transferred some coaching abilities. But not long after that, because of the crisis, the pressure on having results increased even more. He soon found himself at the edge, being forced to restructure his team. He now had to look in his colleagues’ eyes and choose who’s out.
Each year, the dilemmas of the managers who lead mixed teams – with new comers and seniors – are related with having results. Year after year, the objectives are higher, the focus is on increasing profitability, stabilize or grow the market share.
And things have changed. It’s not anymore like in the golden years of growth, when a talented manager could increase the business with at least 10%. Now there’s a great pressure on the manager and he hasn’t got the time that’s needed for training each member of his team.
That’s why it ‘s better to engage the manager himself in a one to one coaching program, where he can identify and develop his own leadership elements. Then, he can work with his whole team on specific issues, during regular meetings, or he can reach external help, like hiring a team coach.
A study done by PriceWaterhouseCoopers in 2011 for International Coach Federation (ICF) shows that 14% of the coaches worldwide are internal coaches. Most of them have less than four years of experience, which proves that it’s a rather recent trend: managers who activate inside companies. Moreover, 54% of coaches work directly with managers and executive managers, who have a 70% average chance that these services will be paid by the employer.
I believe that if a manager has a potential for developing his coaching abilities, he should enroll in a coaching accredited program and become an internal coach, rather than a manager-coach. Then, it’s important that these internal coaches are part of a business department (like sales, client service, financial), rather than the HR, so they’d have a bigger credibility. I know this solution seems at the opposite pole, but at least these are attracting poles.
