Creating Coaching Cultures

Linking Coaching-Based Leadership to the Business

When I am in initial conversations with an organization about starting an initiative to integrate coaching-based leadership into the DNA of the organization, one of the first questions I ask is “How do you envision coaching-based leadership adding value to the business?”  If the answer sounds something like “Well, we just need coaching skills” that’s a huge red flag for me.

In my experience, if the people spearheading a coaching initiative can’t articulate the value to the business one of two outcomes is likely:

The initiative won’t get off the ground, usually because there’s insufficient support (read, insufficient budget.)

OR

The initiative will be sputter out under its own weight, since no one is quite sure why they are investing in something with no clear expected return.

“Just because” isn’t a good enough reason to engage in coaching-based leadership. 

The Foundation of a Coaching Culture: Coaching-Based Leadership

Recently I’ve been hearing more about coaching cultures and personally, I think many people are missing the point.  There seems to be an assumption that creating a culture of coaching implies that all leaders and managers should essentially open up their own mini-coaching practices, conducting lengthy coaching sessions with all of their employees on a regular basis.  This of course, on top of ALL the other things they have to do.  It makes me tired just thinking about it!

It takes a lot of training and practice to be able to conduct successful ongoing coaching engagements.  A well training professional coach will often have hundreds of hours of specific coach training, in addition to working with a mentor coach (or coaches).

I think we need to learn to walk before we run.  To me that means helping leaders learn how to use basic coaching skills in day-to-day conversations. That’s what we call coaching-based leadership.

What is coaching-based leadership?

Coaching-based leadership occurs when people integrate basic coaching approaches into their day-to-day conversations.  Coaching approaches such as asking questions to gain insight instead of just gathering information, listening to understand what’s stuck, and appreciating how the other person views the situation are a few of these approaches.