Culture is the Most Critical Element of Any Workplace,
Culture is the most critical element of every corporate workplace. A shared culture unites all employees towards achieving a common purpose. Organizations that do not build a common culture have disconnected silos of functions or departments that are not delivering their true potential. Shared core values that everyone follows are the foundation of a culture that may include communication, excellence, integrity, passion, performance, respect, trust, sharing, teamwork, technology, and a global outlook.
What is a coaching culture?
An organization that has adopted coaching practices as their primary way of leading and developing people can be described as having a coaching culture. Such an organization grows and develops through its leaders using a coaching method and style to lead and develop its people. In an organization with a coaching culture, leaders do not see coaching as an added burden that takes up too much time. They see coaching as an efficient and effective way of improving team performance, resulting in improved business performance. Such leaders know when a coaching style is required to lead their teams, and they will apply coaching skills in their role as leaders.
What is done differently in organizations with a coaching culture?
Some of the things that you would see being done differently in an organization with a coaching culture:
- Employees have the opportunity and receive encouragement, to come up with their own ideas, solutions to problems, and ways of achieving their goals, instead of being told exactly what to do by their managers.
- Employees feel more empowered and are highly committed to action, as they have been a part of the decision making process.
- Problems are solved more creatively, explored openly and non-judgmentally.
- There is less looking for someone to blame by leaders and team members.
- Leaders coach employees to grow and develop their full potential.
- Team members take ownership of their individual development with the support of their leaders.
Who does the coaching?
In organizations with a coaching culture, leaders take ownership of coaching their team members and have received the training and coaching to build their skills.
Some leaders may also be designated as coaches to those who are not their own team members to enable a more open and honest discussion, mainly where performance issues are due to manager-employee relationships.
While a true coaching culture can only be achieved when leaders fully commit to coaching as an essential part of their role, external coaches may be used and may be seen as ‘safe’ and impartial to organizational dynamics.
Organizations usually hire external coaches to kick start the building of coaching skills and mindsets of leaders and team members and help grow the organization’s culture of coaching.oaching mindset, leader as coach
The benefits of creating a coaching culture
All organizations face the challenge of creating a great culture, where you have great leaders who find great talent, lead them to outstanding achievements through solving problems creatively and methodically and consistently. Leaders can accomplish this by developing their coaching skills, and the organizational processes support a coaching culture. The advantages of a coaching leadership style are:
- Increased engagement
- Developing people and improving performance
- Higher levels of creativity and agility
- Increased levels of ownership among employees
- Strengthens change management capabilities
How does coaching strengthen management capabilities?
Research conducted by the International Coach Federation shows that high-performing organizations have more robust change management capabilities. Coaching is an impactful way to successfully initiate and execute change management in an organisation. Leaders coaching their team members to build and lead an agile culture is correlated with their greater confidence in their team members’ strengths in planning and executing change. The research also found stronger coaching cultures associated with a more substantial talent pool, improved business results, and tremendous success at managing large-scale change.
Coaching is an integral element of the evolving leadership roles
Coaching is no longer an experience reserved exclusively for overstressed senior executives.
Coaching is now a rapidly growing means for organizations to develop their people who take greater ownership for their actions, communicate more efficiently, collaborate with others, and are motivated by their goals. As organizations create a coaching culture, people listen actively, question constructively, feel empowered, enjoy better relationships, and feel comfortable conducting authentic two-way conversations. Therefore, investing in building a coaching culture is now a strategically important priority for all organizations.
We, at Regal Unlimited believe that “Coaching is the future of Leadership” and offer exclusive programs on coaching, coach-training and healing to equip the corporate leaders, change agents, agile and scrum practitioners, self-employed business owners and professionals with coaching mindset and thereby assisting them in stepping up their leadership game and institutionalizing the coaching culture in an organization.
