Tips Tuesday For Leaders: Coaching Is A Skill Best Learned By Supervisors

Great supervisors know how to coach their staff.  Coaching involves skill development and encouragement which motivates staff to learn quickly.  Coachable staff are like sponges, absorbing everything they are learning quickly and effectively.  Supervisors need to know what staff needs coaching and when.  

If you’d rather read about this topic, the transcript is a little further down, so keep on scrolling. 

Transcript

Hi, Karin Naslund here with Naslund Consulting and the Great Supervision Training Series.  

Today  I want to chat a bit about coaching.  In fact, I have a coaching training happening on March 26th in Edmonton.   This one-day training event is going to cover the elements of coaching others, and I call it Coaching For Great Supervisors.  It’s (coaching) something that you can apply in your work environment if you are a supervisor or leader of others that can assist them to grow and develop in their position.   

In my Great Supervision courses, I talk about coaching as one of the leadership styles.   Just like all great coaches in a work setting, you (the supervisor) is assisting staff in developing skill,  and also offering them encouragement as they move forward in the work that they’re doing and in the learning of those skills.  What differentiates someone who needs to be coached versus someone who needs more direction is their level of motivation or interest in what they’re doing.   They (interested people) really want to learn. I think it was one of my daughter’s teachers who said that they are like a sponge. They want to take everything in, they want to learn it, they’re excited by it, and they want to do well at it.   So, for those people who are really passionate and interested in what’s going on, they’re easy to train because they want to be involved.

As a coach, you are encouraging the people that you’re overseeing or the people that you’re coaching to be part of their own development. You can do this through asking questions, and being involved in teaching them the skills that they need.   Whereas, when someone is more reluctant and resistant, you are going to spend more time offering just direction, telling them exactly what needs to be done. You go from A to B to C. People that you’re coaching, are going to be involved. You’re going to encourage them to share their opinion, information,  and thoughts about what they’re doing. It’s going to get them involved in whatever it is, and it helps them to learn more quickly. People who are coached are also very responsive to getting feedback, and for the most part, they take that feedback for learning purposes. I tell my staff or the people I am teaching that when you can’t hire somebody that has all the skills that you would ideally like them to have, you are going to look for someone who is coachable.  Someone who may not have the skills, but has the attitude and motivation for learning, and they can become that person that you can delegate tasks to quickly and efficiently.

I hope you will consider taking a look at my course which you can do that on my website- www.ncginc.ca. For now, it’s happening in Edmonton but virtually I can come into your organization, and when I say “virtually” I mean in person, in-class.  I can come into your organization and help to train your supervisors and help them to become better coaches which absolutely increases staff retention and enjoyment in the job.

Until we meet again, remember success is yours,

Bye for now