The hit Broadway musical “Hamilton” depicts the life of Alexander Hamilton, an ambitious but ill-fated Founding Father of the American Revolution. One of the show’s highlights is the song “Right Hand Man,” in which General George Washington, locked in a grueling military campaign against the British army, realizes that he needs to rely on trusted subordinates like Hamilton to accomplish the mission and turn the tide of the war.
How would history have been rewritten if the real Washington had insisted on leading every aspect of the battle himself instead of delegating leadership to others?
The Do-It-All Leader
Coaching others is an integral aspect of successful leadership, but top-level executives and departmental leaders sometimes fall into the trap of assuming they are the only ones who should provide guidance to their teams. This creates a bottleneck in workforce development and growth. Organizations become too reliant upon the leadership of a handful of individuals in vital roles who can “do it all,” including providing coaching and mentorship to employees. Then, when one of these key players leaves the company, a leadership gap suddenly appears.
What happens when an organization instead shifts its leadership paradigm, recognizing that personal and professional coaching isn’t just for C-suite executives or departmental directors but for team members at every level? How does the culture of a company change when leaders recognize how they can learn to serve and support their team members while pursuing the collective mission?
It may seem out of reach, but this kind of culture shift starts by recognizing the vital role of the “coaching leader” in your organization.
The Coaching Leader
Organizations can avoid the pitfall of overreliance on a handful of key (and likely overburdened) leaders by recognizing that the goal of a company leader should not be simply to ensure his subordinates hit specific sales goals or market share. This kind of managerial mindset treats your hardworking, professional team members as if they are no better than teams of oxen pulling wagons and plows.
Instead, leaders at every level have the opportunity to empower, support, and coach their teams to achieve their potential for success in their industry. Great leaders are those who help the people they lead achieve greatness. Like the coach of a championship sports franchise, effective corporate leaders are not out there “on the field” making the key plays. Rather, they “lead from the back,” observing the wider situation, putting the right individuals and resources into place to achieve the greatest good.
By shifting our perspective on leadership from a results-driven model to a people-first model, we can embrace a new leadership posture: the coaching leader.
A coaching leader seeks to build capability and confidence in each team member so that they are empowered to take responsibility and step into leadership roles at each level of their careers. Growing individual and team skills is one of the coaching leader’s key performance indicators. By enabling the team to thrive — both as professionals and as whole persons — the coaching leader creates an environment of trust, creativity, and accountability that empowers employees to step into new roles and take on new challenges.
Coaching leaders demonstrate specific skills that are vital to this leadership paradigm:
- They manage their own inner dialogue, including their judgments, opinions, advice, and experiences. They seek to listen first rather than to give the right answer or final word on a subject.
- They listen deeply and carefully to their team members, taking in their words as well as their nonverbal cues. Coaching leaders recognize the “vibe” of the company and work culture and use their intuition to determine what responses may be most effective in inspiring understanding and growth.
- They ask powerful, open-ended questions that provoke thoughtful responses. This helps to elicit the perspectives of others, especially when done in an environment that truly welcomes feedback.
- They sincerely acknowledge the individual accomplishments and qualities of team members, and they encourage and champion their employees to take on new challenges.
Coaching leaders are responsible for holding to the vision and mission of the organization, and they must make difficult decisions at times. But by valuing the knowledge, experiences, perspectives, and ideas of their teams, they can create a culture of collaboration and partnership that fosters mutual respect and shared achievement.
Creating a Coaching-Leadership Culture
A coaching-leadership culture is not limited to top-level leadership or executive teams. Organizations that invest in leadership coaching at all levels create an environment in which leadership is a shared responsibility. This approach seeks to create teams of people who are skilled in coaching with clear communication, inspiration, trust, and decisiveness.
When an organization has developed a culture of coaching leaders, they won’t be rocked by executive transitions or management shake-ups. These types of companies are resilient in turbulent times because, at every level, there are trusted coaching leaders who are training others to be coaching leaders themselves.
In their book “Extreme Ownership,” retired Navy SEAL officers Jocko Willink and Leif Babin explain that one of the keys to success in both the military and business is “decentralized command.” The idea of decentralized command is that top-level leadership has trained and empowered everyone down the line so that, at any point during the mission, every leader at every level understands their shared objective and can make decisions to achieve it.
George Washington’s trust in the leadership abilities of his men empowered them to take advantage of tactical opportunities that arose, leading to key victories that won the nation’s independence. That kind of trust is the hallmark of an organization that understands the power of effective coaching at every level. Each leader and team member shares a common mission and all members support one another so that they can work together to turn the world upside down.
To learn more, watch our webinar on growing your leadership capacity.
Related articles:
- “How Workplace Coaching Can Boost Organizational Performance”
- “Structuring a Team Coaching Program That Drives Results.”
The Co-Active Training Institute specializes in transforming companies through coaching and leadership training. Co-Active has delivered programs in more than 16 countries and 13 languages that blend cutting-edge neuroscientific research and a people-first coaching paradigm to produce real-world results. The goal of Co-Active is to restore purpose, connection, and human potential to the center of the workplace.
If you want to build an organizational culture of coaching leaders, contact Co-Active for information on professional coaching and support.