Management: 9 tips for coaching your team
22 May 2012
Read by 2075 persons
Fully embrace your hierarchical position while helping your employees reach their full potential and get the best out of themselves. Coach Patrick Amar explains how to establish this "win-win" relationship.
Being both a manager and a coach for your team is not an impossible mission. Some already do it without using the term "coaching" in their daily management practices. Others can easily start doing it. Here's advice from Patrick Amar, author of "Manager Psychology for Better Success at Work".
1. Don't force yourself
If you think coaching your team is too complicated or (especially) if you don't feel like it, consider surrounding yourself with an assistant who can act as a "transmission belt" between you and your team. If this person is more people-oriented, enjoys spending time with them, while you are more focused on tasks to be accomplished, then this is the best solution.
2. Choose the right moment
Taking time to listen and interact with your employees is essential if you want to help them improve. But not all situations are suitable. Metaphorically, when there's a fire, you don't gather your team to discuss the modalities of fighting the fire (number of buckets, size of the human chain?) in a consensual manner, you put it out urgently by assuming your leadership role! And you do a follow-up afterwards.
3. Adopt an empathetic stance
A good starting point is empathy, that is, the ability to put yourself in the other person's shoes. This involves listening, questioning, and reformulating. The employee thus feels that they are of interest, listened to, and understood. Be careful not to let your attitudes betray you. Saying "I'm listening to you" while you continue to bustle about, take calls, or check your emails, doesn't work.
Patrick Amar is the author of "Manager Psychology for Better Success at Work", published by Dunod (224 pages, 19 euros). He is a graduate of ESSEC, holds a DEA and a DESS in clinical psychology, and is co-founder of AXIS MUNDI, a management and human relations consulting firm. His book offers managers concepts and tools from psychology to stimulate their reflection on management and help them in their daily work. Structured in thirty independent themes, this small guide is very practical to consult.
4. "Forget yourself" a little
To effectively coach your employees, it's important to avoid projecting your own history, frustrations, desires, and fears onto them. Don't impose your way of working, but instead help them find solutions for themselves.
5. Don't judge
Be careful of the way you look at your employees. If the manager considers his employee a fool, the latter is more likely to become one! This is what is called "the self-fulfilling prophecy." Indeed, if you think one of your employees is mediocre, you may not give them enough recognition, feedback, or material to develop. The lack of interest they feel is very likely to discourage them and prevent them from progressing, and this is the beginning of a vicious cycle.
6. Give feedback
Feedback helps encourage and reinforce certain effective behaviors and discourage others. When your employee's work is well done, congratulating or even rewarding them will encourage them to persevere on the same path and not to slack off, as one tends to think. Conversely, when the work is not satisfactory, it is also important to point it out and say that you are disappointed because you know they can do better.
7. Be fearless
Get rid of the common idea that to be respected, you absolutely must adopt a distant and directive management style. Without falling into detrimental familiarity, you can be kind to your employees to help them give their best. By coaching your employees, you put them in a position to become all they can be, which is also in your best interest.
8. Lead by example
In all circumstances, adopt the precept "I do what I say, I say what I do." The team can thus take its cue from its manager. And be careful to remain consistent. Arbitrary decisions are very destabilizing. Indeed, a "weathercock" boss creates stress among his employees because they never know how to act with him.
9. Be flexible
To be relevant with each of your employees, know how to adapt to their way of working. With an autonomous person, you can solicit this autonomy through a participatory management style. Conversely, with employees who need more supervision, you can be more directive, gradually encouraging their initiative. Also respect your interlocutor's way of working. There's no point in rushing an employee who needs time to consider an issue by asking them to react impulsively. Conversely, with someone who likes to be concise and works quickly, it's wise not to interrupt their flow by overwhelming them with details, but it will be important to check the rigor of their work afterwards.
Florence Brunel.
Lentreprise.lexpress.fr
Posted online May 22, 2012.
Being both a manager and a coach for your team is not an impossible mission. Some already do it without using the term "coaching" in their daily management practices. Others can easily start doing it. Here's advice from Patrick Amar, author of "Manager Psychology for Better Success at Work".
1. Don't force yourself
If you think coaching your team is too complicated or (especially) if you don't feel like it, consider surrounding yourself with an assistant who can act as a "transmission belt" between you and your team. If this person is more people-oriented, enjoys spending time with them, while you are more focused on tasks to be accomplished, then this is the best solution.
2. Choose the right moment
Taking time to listen and interact with your employees is essential if you want to help them improve. But not all situations are suitable. Metaphorically, when there's a fire, you don't gather your team to discuss the modalities of fighting the fire (number of buckets, size of the human chain?) in a consensual manner, you put it out urgently by assuming your leadership role! And you do a follow-up afterwards.
3. Adopt an empathetic stance
A good starting point is empathy, that is, the ability to put yourself in the other person's shoes. This involves listening, questioning, and reformulating. The employee thus feels that they are of interest, listened to, and understood. Be careful not to let your attitudes betray you. Saying "I'm listening to you" while you continue to bustle about, take calls, or check your emails, doesn't work.
Patrick Amar is the author of "Manager Psychology for Better Success at Work", published by Dunod (224 pages, 19 euros). He is a graduate of ESSEC, holds a DEA and a DESS in clinical psychology, and is co-founder of AXIS MUNDI, a management and human relations consulting firm. His book offers managers concepts and tools from psychology to stimulate their reflection on management and help them in their daily work. Structured in thirty independent themes, this small guide is very practical to consult.
4. "Forget yourself" a little
To effectively coach your employees, it's important to avoid projecting your own history, frustrations, desires, and fears onto them. Don't impose your way of working, but instead help them find solutions for themselves.
5. Don't judge
Be careful of the way you look at your employees. If the manager considers his employee a fool, the latter is more likely to become one! This is what is called "the self-fulfilling prophecy." Indeed, if you think one of your employees is mediocre, you may not give them enough recognition, feedback, or material to develop. The lack of interest they feel is very likely to discourage them and prevent them from progressing, and this is the beginning of a vicious cycle.
6. Give feedback
Feedback helps encourage and reinforce certain effective behaviors and discourage others. When your employee's work is well done, congratulating or even rewarding them will encourage them to persevere on the same path and not to slack off, as one tends to think. Conversely, when the work is not satisfactory, it is also important to point it out and say that you are disappointed because you know they can do better.
7. Be fearless
Get rid of the common idea that to be respected, you absolutely must adopt a distant and directive management style. Without falling into detrimental familiarity, you can be kind to your employees to help them give their best. By coaching your employees, you put them in a position to become all they can be, which is also in your best interest.
8. Lead by example
In all circumstances, adopt the precept "I do what I say, I say what I do." The team can thus take its cue from its manager. And be careful to remain consistent. Arbitrary decisions are very destabilizing. Indeed, a "weathercock" boss creates stress among his employees because they never know how to act with him.
9. Be flexible
To be relevant with each of your employees, know how to adapt to their way of working. With an autonomous person, you can solicit this autonomy through a participatory management style. Conversely, with employees who need more supervision, you can be more directive, gradually encouraging their initiative. Also respect your interlocutor's way of working. There's no point in rushing an employee who needs time to consider an issue by asking them to react impulsively. Conversely, with someone who likes to be concise and works quickly, it's wise not to interrupt their flow by overwhelming them with details, but it will be important to check the rigor of their work afterwards.
Florence Brunel.
Lentreprise.lexpress.fr
Posted online May 22, 2012.
