Transforming Leadership Series #4
5 Ways for Leaders and Managers to become Effective Coaches

My question this week is How can leaders coach employees to do their best work?

My answer is informed by my extensive background in executive coaching. I spent nine years as Director of Executive Coaching at the Academy of Executive Coaching (AOEC), a leading international executive coaching organisation. For five years I was faculty on their International Coach Federation (ICF) accredited coach training programmes, observing and supporting people to become skilled executive coaches. I’ve conducted coach training for leaders in many global organisations, including GE, Nokia, and PMI International.

Based on my experience and deep knowledge of effective coaching, here are my Top 5 Tips for leaders-as-coach to empower employees to do their best work:

(Note: I tend to use the word ‘client’, but if you are working towards leader-as-coach, then please substitute ‘employee’ or ‘team’)

Be Lazy – your client needs to be working harder than you.
The goal of coaching is for the client to look inside and discover their own answers. This forces them to build their innovation and creativity muscles, which can be a difficult process. It’s vital that coaches allow this struggle and don’t interrupt by working too hard. If you are doing more than your client, you are not coaching!
As business leaders, we are used to seeing a problem, knowing that we need to analyse it and identify a solution as quickly as possible. Leaders-as-coaches must learn to let go of that process and understand that solving the problem is your employee’s job, not yours. Therefore, the leader-as-coach needs an ’empty head’ to observe and experience the employee solving the problem. This is probably one of the most challenging aspects of learning to be a coach as it’s likely you’ll have to undo years of repeated behaviour.
A few years ago, I was a lead trainer on Nokia Finland’s global leadership programme. Leaders flew in from all over the world and were joined by multiple engineers and technical representatives. Nearly all the delegates were experts at solving problems and many of them became exasperated by the coaching principle of not solving your client’s problem. One delegate expressed his frustration, saying, ‘If they are solving the problem, what’s my job?’.
Challenge & Support
If we are too challenging, we can overpower our client. If we are too supportive, we risk making the environment too cosy, and the client won’t feel the need to put in much effort. It’s essential to get the right balance of challenge and support for the individual.
As a coach, I get selected through chemistry sessions in which a senior leader meets several potential coaches from which to choose. My success rate is high because I tell prospective clients that I will challenge them; most senior leaders respond well to this because subordinates are less likely to challenge them. In my experience, being willing to say what others have avoided saying to the leader (‘speaking truth to power’) builds trust in the coaching relationship.
I was asked to coach a very confident male leader to support his development as a coach. He had a straightforward style and was proud of his ability to say things as they were. Unfortunately, this meant that he would sometimes over-challenge his subordinates (clients), undermining their confidence and leaving them feeling a little stupid. In our coaching sessions, I helped him understand the impact of his style and the need to balance his level of challenge with support.
Don’t interrupt while they are thinking
When I contract with new clients, I demonstrate a snow shaker, a glass sphere filled with liquid and little plastic snowflakes. When shaken, the snowflakes swill around before settling down. I explain that coaching is about transformation and change; therefore, they will likely experience a period of confusion and unsettledness while that change occurs. As a coach, I see this taking place when the client stops talking: their eyes may look to the sky, they may lean back and be lost in thought. This is the gold dust of coaching!
New coaches sometimes feel uncomfortable with the silence and jump in to fill the space, worried that the client is disconnecting. Remember what I said about ‘being lazy’; cutting across the client’s change process defeats the object of coaching.
I once observed another leader on a coach training programme who was highly enthusiastic and energetic. He wanted to push the client to succeed. I noticed that he constantly filled any space in the conversation, borne of a desire to add more value and move his client forward. I showed him the snow shaker and helped him understand that his need to drive for a solution was in fact cutting across his client’s needs and process. I invited him to allow his client the space to consider their experience and come to their own conclusions.
Creative indifference
This concept comes from Gestalt and is often seen as the most counterintuitive and challenging concept. The idea is that as a coach, I am indifferent to my clients’ success. I appreciate that this may sound unproductive; however, given that the client is the expert, the focus must be on them taking ownership and responsibility for identifying a solution. They must take positive actions by developing a plan to deliver the desired outcome. If we (leaders-as-coaches) act as cheerleaders, the client may adopt a plan to please us; if they consequently deliver poor results, they end up feeling guilty they have let us down. They must be fully committed to their own solutions, not swept along by our enthusiasm for their ideas.
As leaders-as-coach, we naturally feel a strong connection and desire to support our clients. This is especially so when a client has had a difficult journey and may lack confidence. In my early coaching career, I struggled to let go of ‘Rescuing’ my clients (see below). I had to endure the personal pain of being creatively indifferent and seeing them struggle when all I wanted to do was make it easier for them. I learnt over time that it’s only through the client’s struggle to discover themselves and their own answers that they ultimately grow.
Empower, don’t Rescue
A fascinating psychological process is illustrated by the Drama Triangle (linked to Transactional Analysis). This model has several interpretations; mine has been developed through personal experience and from listening to hundreds of clients describing very similar experiences. Imagine a triangle with the word ‘Rescuer’ at the top, ‘Victim’ in the bottom left corner and ‘Persecutor’ in the bottom right corner. Starting at the top and working your way around counter-clockwise, the Rescuer does everything they can to help the other person. Yet, at some level, the person being ‘Rescued’ can feel like a Victim who will eventually go on to Persecute the Rescuer.

In your own experience, how often have you put energy into a friend, relative or colleague only to end up effectively kicked in the teeth for your trouble? When I ask clients or audiences this question, virtually everyone nods their heads. I was a massive Rescuer in the past and experienced this result countless times before I was shown this model and finally understood the process.

As an example of how this can innocently work in practice, I had a client who loved their job so much that they sacrificed evenings, weekends, and holidays. They would travel anywhere at the drop of a hat to ‘support/help’ the organisation and its people. I was asked to coach this person as their employer felt that, despite being well-intentioned, they were too emotional and intense, and the overall impact was not positive.

As you can imagine, my client was devastated to learn this because all they wanted to do was ‘help’ and add value. After some discussion and explanation, I shared the Drama Triangle with them, to powerful effect. They immediately understood the impact of their behaviour (Rescuer) and why the organisation responded as it did in the role of the Persecutor. I explained that the best way to help another person – or even a whole organisation – is to empower them, not rescue them. To challenge and support them to step up, identify a plan and move forward; in other words, be a coach to them.

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