I do a great job of managing my team. Why should I coach them?

As a manager of a team you have heard all about coaching. Perhaps you even googled the word and found out it's probably about motivating and engaging your team members. But why should you bother learning more about coaching and how it works? So let's cut to the chase. As a manager you might be wondering... how can developing my coaching skills support my team and I?

There's many answers to this question and why you, as a manager, should be interested. That said, here's my 5 top reasons why:

1. It will make your job and your life easier. Developing your coaching skills will allow you to have easier, clearer and more powerful conversations with your team members. You will find that team members will start doing a couple of things that will make your life easier. First, they will become more confident and autonomous in their work - they will know what is required from them and have increased confidence in achieving goals. Secondly, as a result of this autonomy, they will free up your time by bringing solutions to you rather than challenges. 
2. You won't be hesitant in giving feedback anymore. A core area of any coaching skills training is in relation to giving feedback - constructive and positive. Understanding how feedback works and how it can be used to motivate a person will stop you from simply using a parrot-like fashion technique. You will be able to connect with your team members ensuring that both of you leave energised, motivated and happy (even with constructive feedback).
3. ​Your team members expect you to. Your employees have also googled coaching. They have read books in relation to coaching and they expect you to be that manager who coaches. They want you to manage them using a coaching style and if you do not do it you will very easily disengage them (and we know that a disengaged team is not a productive one!) Having an overview of coaching skills will give you the ability to work with your team in order to identify any challenges and their true potential. And their opinion is important. A wise executive once said to me "it's irrelevant for me to include goals as part of someone's PDP  unless the individual actually believes in them... so I first really need to find out what they believe in before I do anything else". 
4. Coaching drives superior work performance so your boss will be happy. Coaching your team members means that they'll be working towards goals that they have set in an autonomous manner. This means that they will be more engaged with their work and your organisation; leading to superior performance. If your team performs well you'll look good... and you do want to look good I'm sure.
5. Your team members won't run away to a competitor. Managers who lead their teams using effective coaching skills help achieve better work-life balance and commitment from their teams. They respect that their manager has invested in their development and truly feel valued. This is a motivational pull that few employees are willing to risk losing.

So there you have it in 5 clear reasons why you should think about investing in your own development as a manager. But do not just rely on your google searches to develop yourself.

​At Smarter Learning we offer a specific Coaching for Managers Training Course that can help. You can find details about it here. Alternatively you can experience coaching yourself and take one of our 1-1 coaching programmes. 

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