How a Business Coach Can Help Leadership Teams

Business coaching is an important tool that can offer a unique advantage if you want to coach your leadership teams, especially in a growing business. Business coaching can help to create an environment that is healthy for leadership growth that can play a key role as the business also grows.

It can help leaders to set strategic direction, develop marketing strategies and operating tactics in a low-risk and non-stressful manner that will improve the numbers and create a business that can run without being dependent on the owner or CEO.

The training manual used by the business coach should walk through the needs of the company. The business coach should also ensure that the members of the leadership team have their needs explored, their skills analyzed and their goals discussed. In that way, it’s easier to make sure your leadership team members are strategically placed to maximize the benefits to the company and create the best environment for the leaders.

You should not confuse coaching with training, as they are different, especially when it comes to the delivery system. A coach will work with management to tailor a training program in the skill areas where there is a need for impact. The coach will also help managers to make behavioural changes that are seen as necessary for growth. The significance is that the coach and the manager(s) must be clear on the competencies that will have an effect on the bottom line. It is

essential that the competencies are measured before and after coaching so that there can be an evaluation of the effectiveness.

At the beginning the relationship is determined – is the coach considered a trusted friend or an advisor? Does the coach listen and provide feedback or does the coach help the manager obtain 360-degree feedback and then develop an action plan to increase performance? The role and the relationship need to be established by both parties before the coaching project begins.

The coach will push the window with each manager to help them grow professionally and to promote the company’s success and the success of the leadership team. A good way to do this is to create a situation so that each leadership team member will ask for help from the coach, rather than the coach forcing their help on the manager.

Business coaching doesn’t look just one way. It is designed to be created to work specific to the needs of the client and in doing so the delivery can be tailor-made.

Understanding the Role of the Business Coach

The business coach is an important asset that savvy businesses and organizations are taking advantage of their services. Still, many don’t fully understand the role of the business coach in today’s modern business, so let’s have a look.

#1 A Business Coach Supports the Employee

It’s usually executives or managers that seek guidance or input from a coach when they are not sure how to handle a certain situation. Sometimes help is sought before a tentative or difficult situation is dealt with. Managers will often seek assistance with their own growth as a manager, which can leave coaches with a very difficult and delicate situation.

A coach has the ability to improve the executive’s abilities and self-esteem, especially if there is confirmation that his or her answer is right. If a coach doesn’t know what the right answer or is speculating the correct course of action is the truth. It’s far better to say you do not know than to give bad advice.

#2 A Business Coach Helps Managers to Develop Their Solutions

People usually know how to act or what they should do. Many time’s the job of the coach is to draw out the answer from the person, because if you give him/her the answer then they are less likely to own the solution. A coach can offer options and make resource recommendations, even give opinions. A coach can answer questions, but in the end the manager must have the answer.

#3 A Coach Must Have Communication Skills That Are Sharpened

Listening is a key skill all coaches need to have in order to be able to understand the actual needs of the manager who is asking for their assistance. It is a coach weakness when he or she assumes the current situation or question is like one previously encountered. The coach needs to be fully engaged and aware to take in the information that is being provided. Open ended questions are necessary to draw out the manager. Listening includes watching body language, facial expression, tone of voice, and movements.

#4 A Coach is a Teacher or Educator

As an external coach you teach managers and leaders as you work with them. The goal is to make them self-sufficient. The role of the coach is to provide them with the tools they need to be successful in their business arena.

Coaching to Get Results

Coaching has become a leading resource that business leaders are taking advantage of to create highly successful businesses. The one misunderstanding is that to use a business coach your business needs to be larger, but that’s not the case at all.

Coaching can help create clarity and direction in any size business. Working with a business coach can help to determine what it is you want to create, the reason it is important, and how you plan to reach that goal. It can help you to create an action plan and then achieve the goals you set.

If you had an empowering way that you could commit to and then achieve your business goals, would you not want to take advantage of it? Well you do, it’s called business coaching.

Business Coaching Helps You to Become Clear on Your Goals

It is important that you are clear on what it is you want from your business along with how you plan to get it. Then you will need to determine what your commitment is. A business coach can help you to create clear goals and plans on achieving those goals.

Business Coaching Aids You to be Effective and Productive

When it comes to support, business coaching provides individual attention along with the challenge and objectiveness that are needed. A skilled business coach is very successful because he or she can:

• Inspire you to expand your solutions
• Keep you focused on your goals
• Make you accountable for your progress
• Support you through the change
• Remove any obstacles so that you can move forward
• Prioritize based on your values
• Challenges you to take the next step

Business Coaching Connects You to What’s Important

Your business coach will help to build a foundation that’s grounded so that you make decisions that are in alignment with your value system and what you value most. They will also help you to create a plan that will ensure your daily actions are in alignment with the values. This is the key to creating commitment breakthroughs.

A small business can benefit as much from a business coach as a larger business. Your business coach isn’t there to make decisions for you, but rather to be a sounding board and to help guide you in the direction that is right for you and your business. Take advantage of outside help to grow your business.

Will Your Business Benefit from a Business Coach

The economy goes up and down. Right now, it’s not doing so well. In fact, most would say it has tanked. Managing your costs is important to your growth and survival, and when the economy is performing poorly, it is even more of a challenge. Experts say that 58% of companies have a shortfall in leaders and many companies are actually cutting their development budget as part of their cost cutting measures.

Before you make that cut, you might want to think long and hard about whether that’s the right choice for your business. When you take development away from the executives, it can be detrimental. Leading is actually a special skill. A key leader can find a business coach a very helpful tool to navigate through the storm and continue to grow and prosper.

Business Coaching and its Effects

Chances are more than 50% of your staff could benefit from business coaching and actually become motivated and energized again with a focus and a goal. Executive coaching involves working with the leaders of your company. These should be the people that are running in high gear. There are some key points where an executive coach can help leaders.

• Polish and fine-tune their leadership skills
• Grow their leadership style
• Recalibrate what the success metrics look like
• Learn how to navigate through the times that are uncertain
• Lead teams with more motivation and power

The program that your business coach or executive coach puts together will be customized to the needs of your team and your leaders. Even leaders who are new to your team can find business coaching very beneficial.

The use of a business coach is still in its infancy. Businesses are often slow to make a change, but those that are perceptive tend to think outside the box and use tools that can help them to make their business more successful. Business coaches and executive coaches can be beneficial to all sizes of businesses from the very small to the largest. They will benefit each business in their own unique way and that will depend on the current needs of the business are.

Whether it’s a downturn in the economy or it’s a struggle to get past a certain block; whether it’s a desire to see your leaders think outside the box and grow or it’s a desire to make sure that your staff are operating in their finest capacity; a business coach can help.

How Your Business Coach Can Help You Grow Your Business

Your business is doing okay, but you’d like to see it grow and prosper. That doesn’t seem to be happening. If you are wondering what you should do, it’s a place many business owners find themselves. A good place to start is with a business coach, who can help you to grow your business.

A Business Coach Helps You to Navigate Market and Economic Changes

You are very aware that you need to grow your business, but for that to happen and for you to grow you will have to learn more. It’s hard keeping up with changes in the industry, never mind the changes that occur on a global business scale. Trying to figure out how to improve your role in the mix can be a bit daunting. Business education is now in a new realm with business coaching and business mentoring replacing the more traditional form of consulting, seminars and books. So if you want to get it right it’s time to turn to your business coach.

Business Coaches Can Establish Accountability

Your business coach is going to hold you accountable, to demand you see results and to demand you see a profit. Your business coach is someone who can push you, challenge you, encourage you to think outside the box, and congratulate you when you succeed. It can be a lonely job being the owner and you often don’t have the sounding board that you desire or need. A trained business coach can help you to solve the problems that arise and to turn these situations into opportunities.

Business Coaches Can Offer You a Second Opinion From Another Expert

You need a business coach to demand results and hold you accountable. You need a business coach who can see through the maze and who isn’t blinded by the industry or the fact that there is too much competition. You want a business coach who can keep his or her eye on the prize. That’s a powerful combination for you.

Like your life, running your business can be challenging and there can certainly be ups and down. Sometimes it’s the simplest of things that hang you up and you can’t work your way through it. A business coach cannot only offer you a second opinion, they can be a great sounding board to help you get over your stumbling block.

Why not join the thousands of small businesses that are turning to business coaches for help growing their business.

Training Methods and Techniques Used By Business Coaches and Life Coaches

In order for a business to transform into a great business, it will have to recognize the strengths of the people that work for the company. Bottom line – your company is only as good as the people you have working for you. If you want to unleash the full power of your company, it will have to begin with the individual.

When the individuals, and employees are shown how to self-manage and to upgrade their professional skill set as well as their personal skill set; and when they learn how to feel alert, balanced, powerful and in control; it is then that they will have the largest contribution to your company. When your company is able to move its people into an optimum zone, with sustainable top performance, the company will also have top performance.

There are many different training techniques and methods that can be used. The focus is on developing further the employee’s thinking skill set and to give them the edge. Here are just a few tips and tricks to consider incorporating into the training.

Highly Effective Business Coaching

Executives and managers of companies who are interested in the development and career growth increasingly turn to a business coach to have a customized development process. Consider this – how often would you have found it helpful to have a chance to talk about some key ideas with a person that is impartial and objective in preparation for a major change or perhaps a very important meeting.

The concept of business coaching has actually come from the sports arena where top athletes employ coaches to help improve and enhance their performance. Business people are slowly realizing that the same benefits can be enjoyed in the business arena using business coaches.

Coaching works best in those environments where there is a desire to be practical, progressive and proactive but at the same time there is value in the opportunity to challenge and stimulate. The executive(s) or manager(s) is thought to be the expert in his/her field and in this way the business coach will facilitated the executive or manager to find the right way forward. Coaching is always forward thinking with a well-structured approach that remains flexible and presumes purpose and commitment.

Effective, Efficient, Productive

When it comes to professional support, business coaching is the exception as it combines individual attention, challenge and objectiveness. The coach’s skills make it extremely successful because:

It inspires you to develop your own solutions

It keeps you focusing on a specific goal or goals It makes you accountable for your progress

It supports you through change

It removes any blockages so that you can move forward It prioritizes based on values

It challenges you to take the next step in moving forward

Research published in Olivero et al. 1997 showed that training can increase productivity by as much as 22 percent, but when training is combined with coaching, it can increase productivity by a whopping 88 percent.

What Does Business Coaching Involve?

Coaching is not training – the delivery system is much different. A business coach will work with the executive or manager to develop a training program that is tailored to the skill areas where there is a need for impact. The coach will help the executive/manager to make the necessary behavioral changes to create growth. The coach does not provide the answer, but rather the coach brings along a process or system to help the client determine the answers.

How Business Coaching Can Create Continually Motivated Employees

Those companies that are highly effective take great pains to make sure that they have established a clear vision for their company along with a clear and concise strategy of how they want to implement that vision. They carefully recruit and retain those employees who are the best to help them carry out their strategy. After all, it is common sense that if you want your company to have a high degree of success you need to have high and continuous employee production, because you can’t do it alone. This means you also have continually motivate employees.

By definition, employee motivation is a key component of the employee productivity equation. It is in this area where you will find that business coaching can have the biggest impact. You can temporarily boost your employees’ motivation using incentives, especially financial incentives, but these are not sustainable employee motivation methods and they will stop working.

Business coaching can help you to create sustainable employee motivation.

A company establishes its vision, mission and execution strategy. An employee also needs to establish their own vision. It will just be minus all the corporate ‘talk,’ and it will be their terms, what they want out of their career at the company.

A business coach will support employees using a mix of individual sessions and group sessions. They will help employees to articulate what it is they want, their goals, and then help them to determine how they might reach those goals in relation to the company they work for.

Employees usually find these types of sessions far more useful than when companies use ‘Personal Development Plan’ templates. Actually, when the results are structured right, they can actually take the templates and transfer them to work effectively for personal development.

Facilitative coaching sessions will take a bottom up data approach that details the skills of each employee and what their motivators are to reconcile with the objectives of the business. The focus is to align corporate objectives to the needs of the employees.

Of course, not all employees will get what it is they want. It will be up to your management team to negotiate a solution that is a win-win for everyone involved. Management will also have to effectively create the basis for the sustainable employee motivation to get the most out of the process.

Coaching Models for the Workplace

The earliest coaching models date back the 1950s and through the 1980s, they were still static models. It wasn’t until the 1990s, when sports coaching models began to grow in popularity. A coaching model needs to be flexible and adaptable so that it can be tailored to the specific needs of the client. Today’s coaching model should:

• Presents a complete, detailed description of the process that’s involved
• It should build towards an outcome that’s predicted
• It should establish the nature of the components
• It uses valid methodology to produce change that is sustainable and measurable

The traditional coaching model was built around change models that were outdated like the grow model, action planning, goal setting, etc. fall very short of creating lasting behavior competencies that are measurable. Using a ‘one size fits all’ approach is simplistic and ineffective because it ignores the person’s behavioral pattern that controls how the skill that’s going to be improved is executed.

With traditional coaching very shortly after those who participated revert back to their old behaviors after the event. It seems it’s a pretty expensive venture for a quick buzz that fades fast. The challenge for development professionals is to improve the organization’s effectiveness through behavioral change that involves a learning model that strengthens the individuals and sustains the behavioral skills.

The 21st century professional coaching is a combined approach that the behavioral sciences founded. Today’s coaching model includes personal beliefs, development, attitudes, values, motivation, social learning and emotions along with organizational and personal dynamics.

Many mechanisms of the behavioral based coaching model come from the behavioral approach to learning and changing. Some of the coaching model aspects are:

• Targeting and then focusing on an explicit behavior
• Analyzing a behavior in relation to its precursor and the consequences
• Applying a reliable and valid method of data collection, data analysis and assessment
• Building of a developmental plan
• Employing behavioral change techniques that are validated
• Measuring, managing and maintaining behavioral change

Coaching models for the workplace need to be effective long term. They shouldn’t provide the answers, but rather the circumstances for the participant(s) to come up with their own solutions that will work. The coach is a bit like a sounding board opening up a dialogue that will help the participants to grow and prosper and that can help a business to grow and prosper as well.

The Role of the Business Coach Put into Play

The concept of business coaching actually got its start on the sports field. In sports, top athletes have coaches to help improve their performance and enhance their abilities. That concept has been transposed to the players in the business arena who have realized that the same methodology can apply in the business environment. Executives and managers can improve their performance and enhance their skills by having a business coach.

Initially a meeting needs to be established with the business coach who will assist in identifying the requirements so that a specific program can be created to meet those requirements.

Coaching can also be extended out to employee groups or kept at the individual level. The business coach isn’t there to bring the answers. Their role is to bring a process or a system that will help the client to discover their own answers.

Accepted as a Coach

An effective coach will define the relationship right at the beginning. The role could be that of a trusted advisor or friend, it could as a sounding board and to provide feedback, it could be as a

performer to help create a plan. This needs to be established early and this role must accepted by both parties if it’s going to work.

The coach will push the envelope with each manager he/she works with so that they can grow professionally and play a major role in both the company’s success and their individual success.

The Coach Isn’t the One in Control

It is important to remember that the coach is a resource and he/she is not in control of the relationship, the decisions or the actions of the person being coached. Sometimes the coach does form a partnership with the coached manager that helps develop good decisions and choices for the company and the manager’s personal growth. However, ultimately the manager will make the final decisions, not the coach. Your effectiveness as a communicator and your knowledge along with the relationship you have developed will ultimately play a role in whether a manager chooses to incorporate any recommendations you might have.

The role of the coach should be clear. As important as the coach can be to a company and the management and staff, they are the outsider looking in and it is very important that clear and concise guidelines are established from the very beginning to make sure that no lines are crossed.

Make sure that the training techniques and methods

• Will improve the employee’s overall well-being. This includes immediate performance and long-term.
• Are filled with fast paced learning that’s fun and relevant to ‘real life’ experiences and that everyone can immediately.
• Will provide positive changes in the thinking skills of employees that affect their professional skills.
• Are loyal to the employers and build exceptional goodwill throughout the organization.
• Integrates well with other development and training initiatives.
• This will cost significantly less than other comparable development and training solutions.

Benefits to the Workplace

• An increase in productivity
• Challenges you to take the next step
• Learning to maximize the workload in the workplace
• Minimize the stress in the workplace
• Help to find focus and build self confidence
• Prioritize based on your values
• Improved career direction
• Employees experience more fulfillment
• Employee enlightenment

* Inspire you to expand your solutions Remove any obstacles so that you can move forward Keep you focused on your goals Make you accountable for your progress Support you through the change

There are numerous training methods and techniques used by business coaches in the workplace. No one method is right or wrong, but it is helpful when the business coach are able to cater their training methods to the environment.

Jatinder Palaha

Digital Business Coach | Web Revenue Strategist | Award-Winning IT Consultant | Author 

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