Most managers will sign on intellectually to the need to coach others. But they also need to sign on emotionally. They have to feel that:

• Coaching others is in their own best interests
• Coaching is in the organisation’s interests
• The coachee wants and needs to be coached
• They are capable of coaching effectively

Only when they have positive emotions to all four of these factors will managers commit to the coaching process so that it becomes part of their day to day routine, like checking e-mails.

True coaching comes from the heart and the head. It cannot be an imposed discipline – it has to be something managers want to do and feel comfortable in doing, both in terms of their own competence and in the context of other pressures on them.

Coaching in is the manager’s best interests

Self-interest is a complex filter of behaviour. Making an intellectual case is rarely enough to bring about personal change; there has a to be a strong link with personal values. In the case of coaching, the manager has to recognise the depth and force of the currents that tug him or her away from coaching. Some of these currents include:

• Urgent tasks. There is always another crisis to tackle. Tasks that require reflection, peaceful contemplation and thinking beyond the immediate are constantly pushed aside by more urgent (but often less important) issues. If the manager is unable to create reflective space for himself, he is even less likely to be able to find time for reflective dialogue other people.
• The comfort of action. “Doing something” is addictive. It provides yet another excuse for not tackling issues that require real thinking.
• Pain avoidance. Coaching can be painful from several perspectives. Firstly, it requires a level of concentration many people find difficult to sustain. Secondly, giving negative feedback can be a very uncomfortable process. Just thinking about it stimulates people to exhibit the physical symptoms of stress – increased heartbeat, sweaty palms and tension in the neck, for example. It’s not surprising that people often expend a great deal of energy not giving feedback. (In the context of diversity, this is a particular problem, as managers often are so avoidant of saying the wrong thing to a direct report from a different cultural background, that the latter does not get the feedback he or she needs to improve their performance.)
• The busy manager frequently spends so little quality time with direct reports that s/he simply doesn’t notice opportunities to coach. If the employee is having difficulties, but feels constrained from approaching the manager about them (another consequence of being too busy), then issues only emerge as coaching needs when they have become a much larger problem, which cannot be ignored, or when they result in some disaster.

To develop a sense of self-interest in coaching, the line manager has to believe strongly that coaching others will have a positive impact on some or all of their:

• ability to do their job
• ability to do the tasks they like to do
• self-esteem/ recognition by influential third parties

Making this case intellectually requires reflective time to think through precisely how coaching can have this impact, and why spending time coaching is a better way of achieving these things than other possible approaches (or what they do now). It is important for the individual to be able to envision himself as coach against his perception of an ideal, effective manager and to align the two images as closely together as possible. This won’t happen solely as an intellectual exercise. Nor will it normally come about (and if it does, it is unlikely to stick) unless she has the opportunity to be coached about her own feelings with regard to these issues. A coaching conversation that focuses on the three elements of ability to do their own job, the tasks they like to do and on their needs for self-esteem helps the manager map put how they can extract real value from coaching. Finally, to cement the shift in behaviour, the manager needs to have a number of positive experiences from coaching, which reinforce their sense of value and efficacy in the role.

Coaching is in the organisation’s best interests

The more convinced the manager is that the organisation will benefit from coaching — and that it will reward those who coach effectively – the stronger their motivation to comply. Altruism can be as strong a motivator as outright self-interest here. Many managers still identify with the well-being of their employing organisation and seeing the organisation succeed is a source of personal satisfaction. Making the link between performance of coachees and performance of the organisation can be an important part of the educational campaign.

The coachee wants and needs to be coached

“if they needed to be coached, why didn’t they ask me?” is a common excuse among managers who do not coach. It can be very easy to ignore the signs of coaching need, or to put people off making the approach. They only need to be told once that you are too busy – after that, they may always assume you are too busy. The manager has to take two proactive steps to change this situation:

Remove the blinkers – actively look for coaching opportunities

Ask people frequently if they would value coaching on any topic, whether from them or from another resource

Of course, sometimes people don’t want to be coached – coaching can be uncomfortable for the coachee, too, and people often avoid issues they should address. Rather than use that as an excuse for letting the matter go, the manager can engage in ad hoc conversation around the question, what is your plan for dealing with this performance or behavioural issue? It may evolve into a coaching dialogue, or the employee may present a different, viable approach for tackling it. Either way, an atmosphere of coaching legitimacy is created and sustained.

They are capable of coaching effectively

One of the surprises for the authors in a programme to develop master coaches in a large manufacturing organisation was the time it took, even for these highly motivated, knowledgeable line managers to have confidence in their own ability as coaches. Only after six months of intensive learning and practice did they achieve genuine independence and a high level of self-belief in their ability to respond appropriately to coachees’ needs.

The lesson we extract from this and subsequent experiences is that companies all too often underestimate the lack of confidence managers feel in coaching, even when they have been trained in the role. An analogy is learning to speak a foreign language. Attending weekly classes can build a theoretical knowledge and basic conversational skills, but when the learner first has to obtain complex directions or explain a medical condition in the new language for real, the theory and the classroom practices suddenly seem woefully inadequate. To acquire confidence in speaking a language, or in coaching, requires a level of “immersion” – living it for real. Managers need to feel they are able to experiment, knowing that if it doesn’t work there will not be negative consequences for them and that they can discuss their experiences with a more experienced coach, as part of their own skills development.

© David Clutterbuck