Coaching is the Key to Leadership Success

Leadership is a high contact sport, and this must involve coaching.  The late Sam Walton of Walmart was asked why he spent one day a week in his office and the rest of the time in his stores with employees. Mr. Walton replied that he knew that was too much time in the office, but he wasn’t too old to learn to be a better manager. If you aren’t meeting with employees on your team regularly, one on one, you are missing a key opportunity to influence them to be more successful.

Consider the biggest obstacle managers face: time! It’s legitimate. With the digital explosion everyone is busy and has too many things to do. That’s what nearly all managers say.  There is an advantage hiding inside of this excuse for you.

A company has three key resources with which to conduct business.

• Capital resources – the financial or money end of the business.
• Material resources – the products and services a business offers.
• Human resources – the people and the potential intellectual and personal power they represent. (Some companies say, human capital, to me that’s treating people like numbers)

The human resources – people – are the most important element of any business. People put the capital and material part of the business to work and make the creative decisions on how to do so effectively and efficiently. The important question is why would a manager not want to invest time in people? A leader’s success depends on his or her team’s success. The sad reality is that the real reason they don’t is too many get caught up in their inflated self-importance to want to interact with employees, or they don’t know how to do it well. Most managers lack the emotional intelligence skills that Dr. Daniel Goleman has identified.

One business we worked with highlights a manager’s coaching deficiency

After talking to employees and spending time in their work areas, they asked us to get their manager to “listen to us and see what we are trying to do.” They said he spent all day sending out inflammatory e-mails and creating reports on minutia. They wanted him to open his office door, get out from behind his desk and communicate with them.

Formal coaching in a one-on-one meeting is an effective way for managers to communicate with employees on a regular basis. A one on one should be done privately, and can take as little as ten to as much as sixty minutes, depending on employee needs. Great coaches do it continuously not just once in a while. The secret sauces is learning an effective process and using it consistently.

Invest in yourself to become a better leader, watch this complimentary video, and then obtain this coaching guide today. “The fastest way to accelerate the success of your team is to coach them with excellence.”

The Art and Science of Exemplary Coaching

Superstar Coaching Self-Study Guide