Manager or Coach?

The role we as managers adopt as coach can probably be best understood by the old adage "give someone a fish and feed them for a day, teach them to fish and feed them for a lifetime." In practice, coaching is about asking questions and never being the next person to speak! It is about helping individuals and teams to achieve their agreed objectives by maintaining or improving their own performance. As managers, this means creating the right conditions that will allow people to become self-motivated.

Being an effective coach at work could be compared to a sports coach. During any match there are three possible positions a coach can choose to position themselves, depending on their personal style of leadership and the situation. They can be on the pitch, in the stand or on the touch line.

In the first position, the coach is on the pitch and takes over from the players when they see things going wrong. Many new managers act like this shortly after promotion. They do this because they have not yet learned how to let people make acceptable mistakes and how to support them in understanding how to get it right the next time, without their direct intervention.

In the second position the coach retreats into the stand and adopts the role of the spectator watching the game from a distance. As a spectator the coach will get a good overview of the teams performance, but communication will be difficult and they will be seen as just another face in the crowd. When the game is over, spectators usually walk away, and some managers do this too, often misinterpreting for delegation what can be an abdication of their responsibility.

The third role is that of the coach who is determined to develop their teams performance. The coach stands at the touch line communicating with but not taking over from their players. In this position they share all the pleasure and the pain of their teams performance.

Most of the coaches work has of course been done long before the game began. During the individual and team coaching sessions, improvements to personal performance were planned and agreed, the tactics were clarified and positions people would play were notified.

Assignment

1. Think about how the example above relates to your role as a manager.
2. Which role are you playing?
3. Analyse the gap between who you are now and the manager you would like to be.
4. What new skills do you need to bridge this gap?
5. Compile an action plan and set some goals.

Yvonne Bleakley is the manager's mentor, director of http://www.coachuk.ltd.uk and creator of The Silent Motivator System, the proven step-by-step programme to maximise staff and gain true respect and commitment.

Download your free e-book "How to Maximise your Staff and Gain Respect” at http://www.silentmotivator.com

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