Last month, we talked about two of the biggest benefits of embracing coaching as a leadership style:

  • Engaging teammates, colleagues, and staff in a way that cultivates ownership of and accountability for their ideas and actions.
  • Creating connection, partnership, and belonging within your team.

We also explored what coaching as a leadership style actually means and how you can start practicing this powerful style of leadership. If you missed it, we encourage you to give it a quick read now.

This month, we’ll dig a bit deeper and explore some commonly asked questions about coaching as a leadership style:

  1. How will this leadership style create a more connected and engaged team?
  2. What challenges should I expect when implementing this, and how do I overcome them?
  3. What are some first steps I can take to practice coaching as a leadership style?

Read below for our answers to each of these questions.

By showing up as a coaching leader, you’ll invite connection, trust, and collaboration and cultivate an environment of learning and growth within your team and organization. If you or your organization are seeking support to start practicing coaching as a leadership style, we’re here to help. Let’s connect.

See you in the DOP,

Q: 🤔 I want a more connected and engaged team, what can I do?
A: 😀 Try coaching as a leadership style to strengthen your relationships.

At the heart of the leadership style of coaching is belief in oneself and others.

Coaching offers you the opportunity to challenge how you see yourself and others. When you believe you and others can do hard things, you can sit in the discomfort of not knowing all the answers. You cultivate humility and confidence in yourself and those you lead.

💡Other outcomes of a coaching leadership style:

  1. Learning opportunities for yourself and others. By asking more questions, you learn more and invite your team to proactively think with more innovation and curiosity.
  2. Trust, connection, and partnership within your team. Your team will be more resilient, resourceful, self-directed, and empowered.
  3. Time savings. By investing time in coaching today, you’ll save time in the long run when your team can think more critically and own their work.

Q: 🤔 I want to implement coaching as a leadership style. What challenges should I expect, and how do I overcome them?

A: 😀 One of the biggest challenges is the discomfort required to change your habits. But, like anything, take it one step at a time.

🔦As a coaching leader, you’re playing the long game. Instead of answering questions with your own knowledge right off the bat, you must be patient and invite your team to come up with their own answers.

This means you’ll likely bump up against the discomfort of knowing you have an answer right now, and if you share that knowledge, you could be done with this task and move on to the next. This is so tempting when your to-do list feels never-ending!

However, the coaching leader will slow down and see what the other person comes up with – because their answer might be even better than yours!

It’s like training for a marathon. You don’t get it all done at once, and results take time. When you start asking your people tough questions like, “What do you think the solution could be?” or “What outcome do you want from this?” you’ll start to develop the internal resources within your team to tackle big challenges with innovation, creativity, and collaboration. Instead of relying on you, your team members can partner with you to uncover new solutions.

Be prepared to sit on your hands (sometimes when you’re at your busiest!) while someone comes up with an answer for themselves. You may have to circle back to the conversation–maybe even more than once. But with time and consistent practice, that same person won’t bother you with the small questions anymore. They’ll learn how to tackle it on their own and bring you solutions instead. This will create more time for you, as well as deeper levels of trust, partnership, and collaboration within your team.

That’s the real shift in your leadership style as a coaching leader – you gradually shift from having all the answers to believing in others and helping them cultivate their own answers!

Q: 🤔What are some first steps I can take to practice coaching as a leadership style?

A: 😀 Shift your mindset from answers to questions and practice asking, “What do you think?” But that’s not the only thing you can start doing now.

Shifting into coaching as a leadership style is a gradual process of awareness and mindfulness; of both internal and external shifts in mindset and behavior. To start, we suggest taking steps around listening and curiosity.

⭐In order to embrace the discomfort of asking instead of telling and trusting in others’ innate wisdom and learned experience:

  1. Have several go-to responses ready for questions your team members bring to you:

    1. What outcome do you want?
    2. What have you tried already?
    3. What feels challenging about this?
    4. How are you viewing this situation?
    5. What do you think?
  2. Listen to understand versus respond. In a good coaching conversation, you as the coaching leader are talking about 20% of the time, most of which is to ask questions and reflect back or summarize what you heard. Often, hearing their own words can empower people to notice their own blocks, cultivate new ideas, and ultimately gain more confidence and self-awareness.
  3. Consider your tone. Often, questions can come across as judgments (especially when you’re in a hurry!). Slow down, and embrace curiosity instead of judgment. Believe in the other person and their ability to do hard things. This will help the other person feel seen and valued and gives them permission to explore their challenge at a deeper level. Stay curious!
  4. Expect discomfort and keep going. Change is uncomfortable because it requires you to overcome deeply ingrained habits. It requires you to leap into the unknown when you’re not sure what it’ll be like on the other side. With time and practice, you’ll get more comfortable with the discomfort of doing something new.

Practicing any of these will start to shift how you approach your team, and how you see yourself as a leader, which will also change how people show up for you.