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Building Trust: How to Cultivate a Culture of Credibility
When it comes to your employees, what do you value most? Sure, they have to be hardworking and dedicated, and …
Coaching has become one of the primary ways leaders develop. Organizations rely on coaches to help leaders think clearly, navigate pressure and make better decisions. Leaders rely on coaches for perspective, objectivity and feedback they may not receive elsewhere. At its best, coaching provides space for leaders to slow down, assess what’s happening and choose how to move forward with intention.
Not surprisingly, the coaching industry has grown rapidly in response to the demand. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) reports that the number of professional coaching practitioners worldwide has grown by as much as 50% in recent years. Coaching has expanded across industries and regions, becoming a common part of leadership development.
That growth has brought clear benefits. Coaching is becoming increasingly accessible to leaders at every level. More leaders have the opportunity to work with a coach, and they’re more likely to find someone whose background or experience resonates with them.
As coaching has become more common, the stigma around seeking help for one’s development has continued to decrease, and that means more and more leaders are getting support that directly influences their effectiveness and productivity.
At the same time, the rapid growth of the coaching industry has brought tremendous energy, diversity of thought and meaningful standards. The profession now includes a wide range of criteria, certifications and philosophies, many of them thoughtful and well-developed. This can be confusing for organizations looking to implement an internal coaching program or individuals interested in becoming coaches themselves. Where do you start?
Like any meaningful change, it all starts with a goal. The goal of any coaching engagement can be boiled down to this: help the coachee get better. No matter their goals, your purpose is the same. Help them improve. Help them make changes to their behavior for the good of both themselves and the organization.
So how do you ensure that the way you’re coaching actually helps someone get better? Is it guesswork? Luck? Intuition? A tried-and-true model? A little bit of everything?
This question points to some of the major challenges in coaching today: inconsistency, the insistence on one right way, guarded methods and obscure frameworks. Too often, coaching becomes more about protecting or projecting an approach or persona than genuinely and simply helping the person grow.
We’re here to tell you that it’s not that complicated. In fact, it can be done in four steps. But being successful in executing those steps requires real intentionality, effort and practice.
When laid out like this, it sounds obvious; of course, you need to identify what the coachee is working on. But all too often this is where coaching gets off on the wrong foot. Skipping this step or not spending enough time here leads to coaching that feels directionless and unproductive. Even if you have good conversations with the coachee, if both the coach and coachee aren’t clear on the development goals, these conversations don’t translate into behavior change.
A key indicator of a clear coaching goal is that you and the coachee have a shared picture of what success looks like. Some goals like “improving communication” might sound helpful. But what does “improved communication” look like in practice? Is it speaking more clearly? Asking better questions? Actively listening? All of the above?
If you and your coachee can’t describe the same picture of success, this is a sign that the goal needs to be more specific.
In the example of “improving communication,” you get to this specific goal by finding out where exactly the coachee is currently struggling. Ask open-ended questions to figure out where communication is breaking down currently. Figure out what the exact skill they could improve upon that would have the biggest impact on their success.
When the coach and coachee are aligned on a common goal, it’s easier to have conversations about performance, provide feedback and create actionable next steps.
Once you have a clear goal in mind, you need to know what your starting point is. Does your coachee have experience with this skill? Have they been trained on it? These questions can guide you in understanding if the coachee is currently performing the task at a sustained, acceptable level.
It’s also important to know how the coachee feels about the coaching opportunity. Is it something that makes them nervous? Do they understand the value in improving in this area? The answers to these questions can help you diagnose their willingness. The combination of performance and willingness determines what they need from their coach. They might be:
Your assessment of the coachee’s current performance and willingness is what guides you to pick the correct coaching approach. We also call this “making the match.” It is what takes a coaching interaction from a conversation to real transformation. Here’s how you can match the four performance diagnoses we listed above:
Matching coaching response: Provide specific step-by-step directions that enable them to meet the standard. Coaching at this stage is all about creating positive momentum. Increased confidence will come naturally as they begin to see success.
Matching coaching response: Give them clear guidance and don’t let them get too far ahead of themselves. Individuals in this circumstance often think they know more than they actually do. As a coach, you want to encourage their enthusiasm while also keeping them grounded in their actual skill level.
Matching coaching response: Build their confidence by facilitating a dialogue about their concerns and reinforcing their past success. Guide them to find their own answers, because they do know what needs to be done.
Matching coaching response: Be available, check in occasionally, but don’t be overbearing. They’ve got this.
One key lesson you learn as a coach is that nothing stays the same. The coachee is going to experience things that make them develop and regress. As a coach, it’s your responsibility to stay in tune with those fluctuations and catch them early. Even if the coachee achieved peak performance and willingness on a skill, that doesn’t mean they’ll stay there forever. Check in periodically to see how they’re doing and course correct when needed.
Those are the four steps that you can use to coach anybody for any goal. Of course, you might not get it right on the first try. Awareness and understanding of these steps are the beginning, but now you need to move to practice and iteration as you make this process a part of your coaching practice.
Eventually it becomes more than four steps, and it becomes a dynamic framework that you flow back and forth through seamlessly to match your coaching approach to what the person in front of you needs today.
