Ask three questions to pick the right leadership coaching approach

Every year there’s a new ‘trendy’ coaching platform or solution on the market, claiming to help leaders create a culture of high-performance.

Understandably, companies find it confusing and difficult to pick the right leadership coaching programme for their employees.

Today’s leaders are expected to deliver better results with less time and resources. They also need to create an inclusive, flexible, and high-performance culture that protects employee wellbeing and learning.

Leadership coaching is a lifeline for managers at all levels, helping them successfully handle those responsibilities and achieve their individual and organisational goals. Some employers have reported nearly 600% ROI from executive coaching.^[1]

However, when organisations pick the wrong leadership coaching approach, team harmony, productivity, morale, and performance can all be disrupted.

So, when assessing your options, ask these three questions to find the best leadership coaching approaches for your organisation.

Question 1: Is the coaching method based on a trend or science?

Unfortunately, there are many traditional coaching programmes that are built on passing fads or lingering myths that have long been debunked by scientists.

Many employers and leaders, unknowingly, adopt these programmes and believe they are helping when they are not.

For example, a study showed coaching recipients felt their traditional coaching sessions were improving their performance by 78%. But when objective scientific methods were used, the results found that traditional coaching accounted for just a 3.6% increase in performance.

This is because although traditional leadership coaching methods may leave people feeling excited and hopeful, they don’t actually show how to implement that learning in the real world once they are back at their desks.

Instead, leaders need coaching that is based on a scientific, evidence-based methodology that is proven to work and backed by a wealth of research.

Also, evidence-based learning focuses on achieving tangible results like behaviour change and performance improvements, rather than vanity metrics such as the number of coaching hours.

Question 2: Is it built for performance enhancement or just to make you feel better?

A good relationship between learners and coaches is crucial to successful leadership coaching, right? Well, not as much as people think. Only 8% of performance improvements are explained by the coach-coachee relationship.^[2]

A common mistake made by organisations is to match leaders with coaches based on relational factors or demographics (such as past occupational experience and gender), rather than their method of improving performance.

This can lead traditional coaching sessions to mirror therapy sessions, where learners feel uplifted by having a coach listen to their leadership concerns, but they aren’t equipped with any skills to solve them.

Instead, employers should choose a coaching programme with a science-based method and framework that demonstrates how individuals will improve specific leadership skills.

In particular, the coaching approach should include an explicit mastery-learning process. Rather than just being able to recognise and understand how to solve problems, mastering skills allows leaders to transform their weakest skills into one of their strongest.

Question 3: Are coaching recipients encouraged to act?

Have you ever experienced that ‘Eureka’ moment, where you have finally found the solution to your problem? You feel pumped with intent. But hours, days, and weeks pass, and you haven’t acted? It’s a common occurrence and happens because intent alone is unlikely to translate into action.^[3]

Yet, to achieve the behaviour change needed to improve leadership skills and achieve goals, action is imperative. Research shows that deliberately practising new skills can improve performance by as much as 14%.^[4]

Therefore, employers should choose a coaching approach that constantly urges people to act and apply their learning in the workplace.

Great leadership coaching challenges and holds people accountable, while creating a safe space where learners can feel enriched, rather than criticised, by detailed feedback and recommendations on how they can improve.

Precision Coaching ticks all the boxes

MindGym’s Precision Coaching methodology is backed by behavioural science, built to drive performance through behaviour change and ensures coaching participants perfect their skills through constant practice and feedback.

It also delivers results for coaching recipients in as little as four sessions.

Delivered through MindGym’s Performa app, Precision Coaching improves the performance of leaders by using a framework based on three core components:

• A solutions-focused approach: Focus on goal getting (not just goal setting).
• Mastery orientation: Desire to become experts in the targeted skill.
• Behaviour enablement: Prepare for potential blockers and enablers to progress.

Want to know more about Precision Coaching?

Watch our free upcoming webinar showing how your organisation can start using Precision Coaching immediately.

References:

1. McGovern, J., Lindermann, M., Vergara, M.A., Murphy, S., Barker, L., & Warrenfelz, R.(2001). Maximizing the impact of executive coaching: Behavioral change, organizational outcomes and return on investment. The Manchester Review,6(1), 1-9
2. ibid.
3. Faries, Mark D. 2016. “Why We Don’t ‘Just Do It.’” American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine 10 (5): 322–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827616638017.
4. Ericsson, K. Anders, and Kyle W. Harwell. 2019. “Deliberate Practice and Proposed Limits on the Effects of Practice on the Acquisition of Expert Performance: Why the Original Definition Matters and Recommendations for Future Research.” Frontiers in Psychology 10 (October). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02396.