Pandemic has impacted several aspects of business operations and customer behaviors. With companies depending on digital means of operations and remote work becoming a new reality, the workplace culture has gone through a dramatic transformation. With the changing dynamics of the workplace, leadership styles also need to evolve.
The traditional approach of command-and-control leadership needs to change and adopt a more flexible approach. Leaders now need to practice tactics to help their team members identify and improve their potential and unique talent with which they can add value to the organization. The change in the mindset is not only essential to fuel the company’s success but also helps employees build their confidence that will subsequently impact the quality of their work. In short, managers and leaders need to become coaches.
Read: When Managers Transition into Coaches, They Need a Mindset Shift
7 tips for managers to become better coaches
In addition to having the right mindset, below are the top seven practices to become better coaches and lead better teams.
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Actively listen, encourage, and empower the workforce
Being a good listener is the first step toward becoming a better coach. Listen to your fellow workmates, try to understand their ideas, and encourage them to do more. If you find employees struggling with their work, try encouraging them with a positive mindset.
Make sure they do better compared to the previous works. Empower them, make them understand their presence. Show them their progress data and discuss their fault areas in detail.
Managers should understand that they cannot become friends and be a coach, at the same time. Therefore, listening to the employee and becoming their friend are two different things; a manager cannot merge these two.
Read: Don’t Underestimate the Impact of Employee Dialogue in the Workplace
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Identify and create continuous learning opportunities
As a manager, you should be able to find the areas where the team is lagging or what essentials to be added for their better performance. Continuous learning is essential for keeping the team updated with the recent trends. Make plans for the learning opportunities so that the team is sound and continuous with performance growth.
Read: How to Drive Quantified Impact across your Learning and Development Budgets with Coaching
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Develop emotional intelligence
Emotional Intelligence is another important virtue for anyone in the position of manager. Sound emotional intelligence enhances success by 58%. It helps managers to empathize with their teammates. Managers can use their emotional intelligence to control their emotions and understand the situation of their teammates in the most empathetic way.
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Ask good questions to prompt curiosity in the team
Instead of just listening to or talking to them, shoot questions regularly in the team meetings. It will stimulate employees to develop curiosity. Give employees the deadline and prompt them to search and learn more. Don’t just blindly give them tasks to be done; instead, ask questions that will make them think and come up with innovative solutions and options. Keeping a watch on the task given is also an important role of a coach.
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Recognize and appreciate the team’s potential
Recognition and appreciation play a vital role in a team’s growth. As a coach, this is an important responsibility to fulfill. The highly talented employees should be recognized well for their efforts. This helps them put in more effort, which in turn helps the team contribute.
It is also essential to appreciate teamwork and the potential often. It helps the passive teammates to give more of themselves to the team. As a coach, make them realize that their efforts are valued and noted.
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Understand their perspective
It is important to know others’ points of view as well. As a coach, do not always stick to your opinions. Always try to know what others think about a particular subject. Understanding and seeing the situation from an employee’s perspective is essential. It helps to derive multiple solutions for a particular issue. A manager can analyze different opinions and can make the best decision. Also, the team will be motivated as their opinions are valued.
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Practice real-time feedback
Real-time feedback is the best option to receive fruitful results. It helps an employee to find their faults and it helps them to solve the issues immediately. It also motivates them as they get feedback as soon as they do work. More job-specific feedback helps them to implement it readily. It makes the leadership stronger and the workforce more empowered.
Conclusion
For a manager, being a coach is a very valuable and high-value responsibility. It is about identifying the potential of every individual in the team and helping them build on it. Such a mindset is essential to drive motivation and resilience in the team. Especially after the pandemic which has brought an accelerated change in how everything should be driven, managers must learn to be better coaches.
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