Strategies for Developing Leaders As Coaches

“Tell me about a winning sports team that does not have a Coach… There isn’t right? Then why our corporate teams don’t have coaches? Every leader has an added responsibility to be a Coach. Coaches don’t play the games but they make you win the games…” claims Eric Schmidt in a recent interview

The coaching leadership style is fast gaining momentum in the corporate world. As the corporate world reels under silent (and significant) problems of Moonlighting, Quiet Quitting, & The Great Resignation – the traditional leadership style of Command – Control has to be shunned. 

Daniel Goleman, a renowned author and science journalist, classified leadership styles based on emotions. Coaching is the leadership style for the 21st century. Future workplaces will have coaches and not bosses. The industry is changing. Are your organizations pivoting? It is your choice. Whether you want to be a Blackberry or an iPhone. Become irrelevant or become the industry standard.

 “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”- Mahatma Gandhi.

Future-proofing your leadership should be an obvious step. If it was not, we would recommend that you do it. How can you future-proof your leadership? By developing leaders as coaches. Here are a few strategies that you can employ to achieve the desired result.

Before you try to embed a coaching culture in your organization, it is important that you must educate yourself about what is the coaching style of leadership. 

The autocratic leadership style revolves around top-down decision-making. The coaching style of leadership is in contrast to that where leadership is oriented towards partnering, collaboration, guidance and support.

Coaching style of leadership involves leaders providing assistance and direction as opposed to directives and commands. The employees learn how to adapt to a continuously changing environment in ways that spark new vitality, ingenuity, and commitment.

As the baton of leadership is handed over to Millennials and Gen Z’s, coaching style of leadership will assume greater importance as they prefer to partner in the organization rather than be treated as a subordinate. You can read more about this leadership style in our relevant blog.

Now that we have understood what the coaching style of leadership is, you must critically evaluate whether the coaching style is something that resonates with you. 

We know that even the best of the strategies fall flat if the culture is not conducive for its execution. The same is true for developing Leaders as Coaches in your organization.

You must have conviction as you are one of the first who will create the waves that future leaders will ride on. It may be challenging at times but it will definitely be rewarding. Your legacy. Better productivity, improved mental health, enhanced work-life integration, reduced employee attrition, and deep conversations will be the immediate benefits that you can witness personally.

In India, the coaching culture is becoming a differentiator – Ford, TCS, Intel, CEAT and many other companies have embraced this rich culture of Leaders as Coaches

Once you are convinced that you wish to embrace coaching culture, let us explore the various ways you can develop leaders as coaches.

Strategy 1: Hire ICF Credentialed Trained Coaches to experience Leadership Coaching for Senior Leaders

In this strategy, the first step is to empanel coaches and experience the power of coaching through a pilot project. Any goal that you set or any challenge that you wish to overcome will be dealt with successfully. 

The goal of this strategy is to experience (firsthand) the power and methodology of Coaching. Usually, an organization nominates their senior leaders and executives to undergo 1:1 Coaching. Various Leadership Coaches and Executive Coaches are hired after due diligence. 

Regal Unlimited has the best Leadership & Executive Coaches who can partner with you and coach your leadership 1:1 on various professional and personal goals. You can handpick the leadership coaches and groom your leadership so that they experience the power of Coaching. 

Once they have experienced the power of coaching, and they are convinced of its impact – then the same can be percolated down the levels of leadership. That’s how executive & leadership coaching works in developing leaders as coaches. 

Strategy 2: Train your HR/L&D Leaders to become ICF Coaches who in turn train leaders in the team

Now that the senior leadership is convinced, the next step is to train your HR and L&D leaders to become ICF-certified and credentialed coaches. 

WHY HR/L&D professionals for ICF Training – you may ask!

The primary reason is – the HR function is people-centric, they have the nuances and the pre-requisite skills to coach employees. Investing in HR folks is a strategic move because they have the responsibility and the inclination to work with people. Finally, this is an investment by the organization because “Becoming a Coach” is a natural career path for many HR/L&D professionals. 

Once the HR/L&D is trained in ICF Certification, these certified coaches can then inculcate coaching competencies in your employees. We offer ICF Coaching & Certification to HR/L&D folks through specially curated programs.

Strategy 3: Handpick your high-performing leaders & groom them through the Leaders as Coach program

We have a program specifically designed to embed a coaching culture in the organization– the ‘Leader As Coach’ program. For the sake of brevity, we shall not go into the details of that program but feel free to read up about it on our webpage. 

We have worked with leaders from a global automobile company, a big receivables exchange company, a global pharma company that is a pioneer in Insulin & developed their leaders as coaches, and a tech company in South America, thereby establishing the coaching culture in organization. 

You can go a step further and develop your own coaching model for your organization like other multinational organizations. You can make coach certification and credentialing a natural career progression for your leaders. This will make coaching the foundation of your leadership.

Strategy 4: Learn from the Best Practices from Industry

“All leaders are learners. The moment you stop learning, you stop leading.”- Rick Warren

It makes sense to learn from the successful business practices of industry leaders. A lot of multinational companies have embraced a coaching culture. The wide-scale adoption indicates success as a consequence of coaching. Understand their model, tweak it to suit your needs, and implement it. There is no need to reinvent the wheel!

Do it Yourself

This is probably the easiest strategy. There is an abundance of information available that can be studied and replicated in your organization. This involves you getting an idea about what is truly a coaching culture and then trying to implement it. 

You can educate yourself about the nuances of coaching by reading more books about coaching and attending webinars on the subtleties of coaching. Regal Unlimited conducts regular webinars for prospective learner coaches to educate them more about coaching. Here is a link to our YouTube channel with a lot of content around coaching for leaders.

We regularly come up with interesting e-books, guides books & webinars for organization leaders like you. One such webinar is on Leaders As Coaches

Since this strategy is being implemented independently without experts’ help, you will need to regularly monitor and track coaching outcomes.