Organizations that teach their leaders how to coach employees show higher levels of productivity, engagement and financial performance. For coaching to be effective, you need to build a coaching culture that will support five basic requirements of individual development. According to the Talent Management website, the requirements include:
1. Feedback and opportunities for improvement
Do your leaders and coaches speak with their people about their expectations, performance and development needs openly? Do they offer opportunities to improve?
2. Trust to promote motivation
Do your leaders really care about the interests of their people? Do they think of coaching as an opportunity for further development and not just as a tool to correct mistakes?
3. Support for skills development
Do your people come up with new ideas on how to do things differently? Do you have effective mechanisms for identifying and removing barriers to learning?
4. Flexibility in practice
Can your people reasonably risk and try new things? Are coaches strong examples for them in supporting the risk-taking?
5. Responsibility
Are your people accountable for meeting their development goals? Do you have a system of rewards for performance linked to meeting these objectives?
The actual building of a coaching culture in your organization stands on three pillars:
1. Appoint coaches who can lead by example to the positions of leaders at all levels. Before you start a program of internal coaches, get senior managers trained by external coaches.
2. Integrate coaching in performance management and talent management systems.
3. Build a base of internal coaches with a natural talent to develop others and interest to lead by example.
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