When I hear the word coach I picture
someone teaching another to play or improve on a sport. Maybe this is due to my athletic background,
but the idea of a coach is someone that encourages you and guides you to be the
best you can be. This theory is also
true in a business perspective. Most
people who have reached out to a coach have the will to succeed but are at a
crossroad where they are unsure which direction they should take, a coach can
help them realize their goals and achieve them.
The first thing a coach should ask is
what avenues have the client already tried and why did they work or not
work. This will not only prevent the
coach from offering duplicate strategies but also give insight into the way the
client thinks. Obolensky (2014)
describes the GROW model: goal, reality, options, will. Through a series of questions, the coach can
achieve an understanding about the silent and help them to move through the
process of finding a suitable solution.
The role of a coach isn’t to offer the client a certain solution, but to
teach them how to solve problems on their own.
Coaching is important in both leadership
and strategy. Leaders are not born
knowing everything about the business they are in, they have to learn from
someone who has been through the same situations they are in now. This is where a coach comes in, they have the
knowledge the leader needs and instead of spoon-feeding them answers they
instead show them how to think critically.
Once a leader has the ability and knowledge to solve the issues they can
then create a strategy that works for the company. Strategy comes from knowledge, and knowledge
comes from experience, all of which a coach can offer.
An organization that is open to coaching
is open to change. Coaching is all about
change, whether it is changing ideas or strategy, the end result is usually a
much different scenario than was first thought of. An organization can benefit from coaching,
especially among its leaders; it gives an opportunity to see things from a
different perspective, which can lead to more open-minded decisions. It can also lead to the idea of upward
communication and strategy, which will only improve the leadership quality
within the company.
My organization could have benefitted
greatly from upward communication. If
the leaders were open to listening to the suggestions from the people who were
on the front lines then they would have realized how some of the decisions they
made were not ideal. My organization
seemed to be stuck in the old school thought that the leaders knew best and did
not need to ask any questions of anyone except each other. This did not serve the business well, as they
were not the ones who were in direct contact with the guest and they were too
far removed to really understand exactly what the guests wanted.
Coaching exists to improve people,
whether it’s their skills or the way the process and think through
problems. A coach isn’t there to tell
you how to do things they are there to guide you through the process, to
improve your skills and teach you new ways to think about things. Coaching can make good leaders even better;
it can also help followers to understand how the business is run and what they
may need to do to climb up the ladder.
Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership:
Embracing paradox and
uncertainty (2nd ed.). Farnham, England:
Gower Publishing Limited.
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