The Source of Powerful Coaching: Relationship or Techniques?
When we work with managers who coach employees, we emphasize the importance of the coaching relationship itself as a key determinant of coaching success. The manager and employee who feel a level of trust and safety with each other tend to get better coaching results. How coaching produces learning is still under research, but early evidence shows that the relationship matters far more than any particular coaching model or approach.
Not just any friendly relationship will do the trick, however, so this article explores what the manager can do to promote an effective coaching relationship.
Start Coaching on the Right Foot
Have you ever gotten advice for which you didn’t ask? How did you feel about the person who tried to coach or advise you? To get coaching on the right track from the start, design the coaching relationship with the employee. Ideally, you can do this before any coaching has begun so the parameters, expectations, and mutual accountabilities for coaching are clear. For managers who are already coaching, it can be productive to revisit these aspects of the coaching relationship with your employee.
He that complies against his willIs of his own opinion still.
Hudibras. Part iii. Canto iii. Line 547.
Samuel Butler. (1612–1680)
- Both manager and employee should enter the coaching relationship willingly.
A person who is in coaching sessions but doesn’t want to learn or doesn’t believe in the process will not make progress through coaching. If something is so urgent and important to change, then it’s not a coaching conversation; it’s a managerial conversation about expectations or compliance. Coaching is for learning, and people learn when they want to. If the coaching program is not optional in your organization, help the employee design with you how the coaching will work so they can draw on their intrinsic motivation.
- The manager and employee jointly design the coaching engagement.By designing how the coaching partnership will work together, you continue to build the employee’s buy-in for the coaching process. If the employee reports to you, then be careful about driving the agenda – you want the employee to believe in the process and not simply to comply with what you suggest. Here are the major areas of the coaching agreement:
- Purpose (connect coaching to personal goals and values –help them find a way to relate the work of coaching to what’s important to them)
- Scope (what areas are included or not)
- Goals (observable changes in performance or abilities)
- Schedule (program duration, meeting frequency)
- Meetings (where, when, how, how long)
- Use of information from coaching conversations (confidentiality)
- Discuss potentially thorny issues – what might get in the way of effective coaching
Talking about these before the coaching starts helps you get on the right foot.
- What’s your energy level for working on what we’ve discussed?
- What other commitments might keep you from working on coaching?
- How much would you like me to challenge you?
- What should we do if one of us is not following through reliably?
- If the coaching is not working as well as we want, how will we raise it and improve it?
- What else comes to mind that we should discuss about our coaching before we start?
Some of these questions feel a bit uncomfortable, but getting them on the table is much better than letting them simmer and derail the coaching. Having constructive conversations about touchy issues can increase trust levels, too.
During the Coaching Program
Your behavior and presence as a coach, even more than your words, are models for the employee. When your actions, body language, facial expressions and words are congruent, you are building presence and trust.
- Be accountable to the coaching agreement. It’s a partnership.
- Ask about commitments the employee missed and what they want to do about it.
- Challenge the employee when appropriate.
- Use support, not punishment, when there are breakdowns.
- Keep coaching conversations separate from evaluation and managerial conversations.
- Continually improve the quality of your listening and presence.
- Display and foster mutual respect.
Fundamental Beliefs about Coaching
These beliefs have been found to contribute to effective coaching relationships.
- Empathy
Empathy is not warm feelings towards everyone – it is feeling what the other person is feeling. When the employee feels understood, there is an opening for learning. Genuine empathy contributes dramatically to the effectiveness of coaching.
- Congruence
When you are consistent, accountable, focused on the employee’s development, and your words, actions, and body language are congruent, the employee will more likely believe in the coaching relationship.
- Unconditional positive regard
This means you have positive belief in the employee’s ability to become their best. It does not mean you have to agree with their beliefs or choices.
Coaching works when the coaching relationship is effective. New manager coaches tend to worry about getting the questions just right, following the model, avoiding mistakes, and so on, but that's stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. Yes, those things matter, but when you have a high quality coaching relationship in place, recovering from a mistake is much easier. When managers give attention to these three areas of building and maintaining the coaching relationship, the effectiveness of their coaching will improve.
© 2011 Bobbi Kahler. All rights reserved. Developing Leaders, Creating Possibilities: Kahler Leadership Group
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