The Benefits of Leadership Style Coaching for Managers

This type of coaching is slow and sometimes arduous. For these two reasons, it is an approach managers tend to shy away from. Goleman (2013) argues that this is a mistake.

This type of coach does all the typical things any coach does. They engage in strength identification, short and long-term goal planning, and provide feedback.

These coaches have an opportunity to highlight exactly how the coachee fits into the bigger company picture. They can form and create a bond with the employee, much like a mentor might.

Goleman points out that there is an ongoing dialogue between the two people. The coachee knows what to expect, and the expectations of the coach. Because feedback is frequent the employee “feels free to experiment.” The coachee knows that the coach cares about their development.

There are two instances when this approach works best:

• If the coachee has “buy-in” and is ready to make improvements, and
• If the coachee understands that developing new skills, soft or hard, will help them advance

The Benefits of Coaching in an Organization and the Workplace

The number one benefit to companies is the effect coaching has on their bottom line. When employees receive coaching, they are more likely to remain in the company. This means turnover reduces. By 2020, companies can expect to pay R680 billion in turnover costs (Work Institute, 2018).

Employees leave companies for a variety of reasons. The report cites the top three as, career development, work-life balance, and manager behavior.

Another thing to consider are the costs of hiring a new employee.

Retaining good employees and helping them to become great employees starts with the onboarding process. This should include three elements:

• Learning what makes the company unique
• Learning how s/he fits into the company’s mission, and
• Instilling the company’s vision, mission, and values into the new hire.

After this, coaching which involves consistent and frequent feedback is crucial. Employees need three things in the workplace: a sense of culture, connection, and contribution (SHRM, 2018). The easiest way to do this is through coaching.

Grant (2005) defines workplace coaching as “on-the-job coaching by line managers and supervisors with the aim of improving productivity and developing individual workers’ skills and their understanding of job requirements.”

A workplace coach understands the unique skills, abilities, weaknesses, and strengths of their team members. They focus on opening up opportunities for team members to develop their strengths.

The Dark Side of Coaching

Coaching is an unregulated field. Practitioners do not need degrees specific to coaching. They also do not need certifications of any kind. Coaching, in general, has grown into a billion rand industry. It attracts people from various backgrounds, educational levels, and experience.
Along with this growing population of potential coaches are many opportunities for certification. LaRosa cites 500 programs worldwide writing that many “will certify you if you simply pay them a fee.”
Whether a coach or mentor can successfully use the research depends on their willingness to stay up-to-date and receive training.
People interested in pursuing a coaching partnership need to know their own objectives. To ferret this out, consider some of the following questions:
What do you need from the experience?
What do you hope to achieve by its conclusion?
What experience do you expect the coach to have?
How important is the coach’s certification to you?
If certification is important, then from whom and for what?
This is not an exhaustive list; it is a jumping off point. One of the most important questions to consider is “fit.” Can you work with the person?

What are the Proven Benefits of Life Coaching and Mentoring?

Should a person choose a life coach or a mentor? The answer depends on one’s goals.

A life coach can help a person to identify strengths, develop them, and identify personal and professional goals. Their role is to assist the coachee throughout the change process. As you will discover, this happens in several ways.

A mentor’s focus is partly on compatibility with the mentee. The mentor and mentee might engage with each other through social or professional events to determine ‘fit.’

This is the initiation stage (APA, 2006) where the mentee must “prove him- or herself worthy of a mentor’s attention.” There may or may not be money exchanged in a mentor/mentee relationship.

The three other stages of a mentoring relationship are:

• Cultivation – The mentee learns from the experiences of the mentor. The mentor gains insights from the mentee about new areas or emerging issues within the shared field.
• Separation – This is the end of the relationship. Challenges arise if one of the parties is not ready to end the relationship.
• Redefinition – The relationship reaches this level after successfully completing the separation stage. During this phase, the relationship evolves into a “collegial relationship or social friendship” (APA, 2006).

If a person chooses coaching, there are many benefits. Coaching conversations help a person focus attention on their desired goals (Moore, Jackson, & Tschannen-Moren, 2016).

Most of the session involves the coach listening, and then asking powerfully focused life coaching questions. Moore and colleagues offer several examples. Among them are:

• What was your best experience with your goals in the past week?
• What percentage of achievement did you reach for this goal?
• What contributed to this level of success?
• What did you learn from the experience?
• When you think about this goal, what feelings does it stimulate, and what needs does it meet?

The foundation of a good coaching relationship is trust and authenticity. This allows for vulnerability. Coachees who open themselves to being vulnerable also can experience growth in self-compassion (Moore, et al., 2016). Researcher Kristin Neff (2019) defines this as a combination of self-kindness, mindfulness, and a sense of common humanity (Neff, 2019).

Positive psychology coaches pay particular attention to assisting clients to identify their strengths. Coachees learn to explore and develop them as a means to achieve their goals, and also to cultivate positive emotions (Moore, et al., 2016). Generating positive emotions leads to what Fredrickson (2013) calls, “an upward spiral.”

In her landmark work, she identified ten positive emotions:

1. inspiration
2. hope
3. pride
4. interest
5. love
6. awe
7. amusement
8. joy
9. gratitude
10. serenity

Coaching creates the space for clients to build on these emotions and flourish.

Most people do not like being told what to do or when to do it. Coaches who understand this will build coaching relationships that allow the client to act autonomously.

Autonomous motivation means the person controls the decision-making process. The coach provides resources and support and nudges as needed, but the coachee is in charge.

People who are autonomously motivated pursue actions that are of interest to them (Moore, et al., 2016). They view the actions as important. Behavior change happens when the client experiences greater autonomous motivation.

Moore and colleagues (2016) cite five benefits originally identified in Deci’s (2013) presentation, “How do we support autonomy and build accountability?” They are:

1. Positive behavior changes last longer
2. Increased creativity and flexibility
3. Improved performance
4. Making changes is enjoyable
5. Health and personal relationships improve

If coaching does not fit a person’s needs, then establishing a mentor relationship can also be beneficial. The APA (2006) defines mentoring as a “professional development relationship” having two functions.

The first is career-related placing the mentor as a coach dispensing advice. The second is prosocial and puts the mentor in a role model and support system position.

Mentored individuals are more satisfied and committed to their work and have better performance evaluations (APA, 2006). Mentees are not alone in reaping the benefits of this type of arrangement. Mentors often feel reenergized and satisfied because they are helping someone become a leader.

Both Life coaching and mentoring involve a willingness to learn, grow, and adapt.

Benefits of Life Coaching & Mentoring

Life coaching and mentoring are booming fields.

They are popular professions worldwide and show no signs of decreasing.

Certification programs abound, but as you will read, this is an unregulated field. Certification is not required. Testing and licensing do not exist.

Unlike people trained as psychologists or counselors who are licensed, life coaches are not therapists. A life coach could have no, some, or extensive education in almost any field and still hold the title of “life coach.”

Knowing this, why do people hire a life coach? Education does not equal wisdom, but experience often does in the minds of many.

Would you rather work with someone who has traveled the same path and succeeded or someone who has little-to-no real-world experience?

Regardless which you choose, you can reap the benefits of a life coaching or mentoring relationship.

These exercises will explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology including strengths, values, and self-compassion, and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students, or employees.