A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where
they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.
Rosalynn Carter, Former First Lady of the United States of America
One of the most common questions that we get as executive coaches are, “What makes your coaching different from other kinds of coaching?” Our answer to this question is always: our focus is on organizational leadership. We know how hard it can be for managers and executives to maintain their balance in an organization with a culture that often includes high levels of stress and pressure. That’s why we’re committed to helping leaders foster the right environment within their organizations by providing them with tools and strategies for self-awareness, resilience, creativity, collaboration, and effectiveness. There are many benefits to executive coaching in organizations particularly for team performance, lean performance, and safety performance.
Executive Coaching for Team Performance
Executive coaching for team performance is a paradigm shift in how organizations are managing their human capital. Organizations recognize the benefits of investing in executive coaching as an investment toward greater levels of employee engagement, productivity, and business outcomes. However, most people do not realize that executive coaching can also be used to improve team performance and elevate the organization’s strategic thinking. Executive coaching ignites a spark of creativity in individuals and teams that ultimately help achieve higher levels of employee engagement, improved team interactions, and better decision-making.
The following are a few examples where an organization would benefit from executive coaching for team performance:
- Improving Interpersonal Relationships
The level of employee engagement in an organization impacts how well teams work together. Not only does it affect morale at the team level, but it also affects individual commitment and inspiration to do a better job as well.
Since executive coaching focuses on individuals, when executives are coached, they find ways to connect with their teams more efficiently than they ever have before. Whether it’s having a more relaxed, inspirational conversation, or providing clear feedback for team members to improve their performance; executive coaching makes room for the best version of oneself in order to achieve better results with individuals and teams.
2. Creating a more positive and open work environment for all employees
Effective teams are more than just people who work together. They share the same values and vision, which is why positive relationships between leaders and team members can be a secret weapon for any organization.
When an executive is coached, he or she develops a deeper understanding of team members’ personalities and work styles, which helps foster more productive and healthy relationships with their teams. Even better, when team leaders are coached, they receive the tools to coach their peers and develop trust in others’ capabilities. This can have positive impacts on employee satisfaction and engagement which can lead to better performance.
3. Developing Self-Leadership
According to research conducted by the International Coach Federation (ICF) and their study titled The Cost of Poor Leadership, when team members are coached individually, they receive the support they need to become more self-aware leaders. When a team member is coached, he or she develops a better understanding of his or her strengths, weaknesses, and how he or she can self-lead in order to get the most out of working with a team.
Executive coaching helps individuals recognize their strengths and weaknesses, which ultimately leads to more effective communication and collaboration with others in the workplace. Additionally, when employees are coached individually, they become more aware of how certain behaviors impact other people and where there might be room for improvement. This helps fuel the motivation to make important changes and inspires self-leadership for everyone.
4. Elevating team collaborations with a focus on communication, alignment, and trust
Developing a clear understanding of team members’ work styles and personalities helps coaches and leaders connect with individual team members on a deeper level.
When an executive is coached, he or she develops stronger connections to team members because they both understand each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and how to work together more effectively. Team members develop similar connections with other leaders, which helps foster a more positive and open environment for everyone.
Teams that are coached by executives also develop trust in one another because of the increased communication between team members and leaders; not to mention all the fun they’ve had along the way!
5. Better decision-making and clear understanding of strategic goals
When an executive is coached, he or she is better able to gauge the individual motivations of team members and what each person values most.
Executive coaching helps leaders connect with their teams on a deeper level which helps them get clear about how to best move forward as a team. For instance, if one member of the group has been silent during team meetings but is actually an integral part of certain team projects, coaching can help move that person to a place where they are comfortable leading discussions and sharing ideas.
Additionally, because executive coaches understand the way people work and their strengths and weaknesses they can serve as valuable resources for leaders who want to make decisions on their teams. Coaches can also help leaders see how certain decisions will impact the team, whether they are positive or negative.
Executive Coaching for Lean Performance
With the accelerated pace of change in today’s economy, organizations must get lean to compete. Executive coaching can help individuals and teams improve their ability to deliver value for the customer, while increasing operational efficiencies and improving quality.
Executive coaching helps organizations move away from a compliance-based approach towards greater innovation and responsiveness to customer needs. It provides individuals with personal clarity, tools for enhanced self-management, increased levels of engagement, and greater alignment within the organization. The following are a few examples where an organization would benefit from executive coaching for lean performance:
- Improving Individual Performance
A coach can help individuals make faster, more effective, and sustainable progress in their development. Lean is a mindset that requires individuals to change how they view work – as a challenge rather than something to complete or check off on a list. Having confidence in one’s ability to learn from mistakes and develop the skills necessary for success makes all the difference between average and successful performance.
2. Increasing Innovation
A coach can help individuals create a more innovative mind-set in support of company goals. Innovation comes from not only identifying new ideas but also improving the value stream to key customers through increased productivity, reduced waste, and higher quality. Increased innovation leads to greater customer satisfaction as well as increases in both market share and profitability for the organization.
3. Creating a Culture of Collaboration
Lean is a philosophy that requires individuals to work in harmony with others towards common goals. A coach can help people learn how to collaborate with each other more effectively, which will, in turn, increase operational and quality efficiencies. Developing skills in collaboration also frees people up from their “silo mentality” so they can focus on the bigger picture of what’s best for the company and the customer.
4. Improving Individual Decision Making
A coach can help individuals learn how to make more effective, quicker decisions for the organization. When employees have clarity on their own goals and priorities, which are aligned with those of the company’s, they gain a greater sense of confidence and empowerment. This in turn leads to higher levels of engagement and commitment to the organization.
5. Leadership Development
A coach can help leaders move away from a command-and-control style of management toward a more participatory approach to leadership. This will result in increased levels of engagement and motivation, which ultimately drive improved organizational performance. Executive coaching also helps leaders become more aware of their strengths and weaknesses, so they are able to become better leaders and overall contributors to the organization.
Executive Coaching for Safety Performance
As the world of work becomes increasingly competitive and globalized, companies are expected to enhance their business processes through improvements in quality and safety. In today’s corporations, the pressure is on top management to achieve outstanding performance in these areas. The improvement of both quality and safety has become critical to the survival of companies today.
The following are a few examples where an organization would benefit from executive coaching for safety performance:
- Overcome an organization’s reactive approach to safety performance where it often reacts to events only in the aftermath of an accident or near miss
For example, following a major incident like a fire explosion which killed several workers, and injured many others, occurring at its factory site, one company’s management reacted by introducing training in emergency response procedures for all employees. This was done in order to address the workers’ safety concerns and rehabilitate them psychologically following such a major accident.
With no system in place, however, employees felt that they were left to cope with the aftermath of this major incident on their own. They felt unsure about how or when the factory would re-open for business, and as such, they felt confused and frustrated. It took several months before the factory started functioning normally again as a result of this major incident.
The consequences of not addressing workers’ safety concerns with this type of reaction can be very costly to an organization because, it often leads to frequent occurrences of stress at work in employees, which further results in lower productivity and high absenteeism.
Executive Coaching for Safety Performance can help in preventing such incidents from occurring again by addressing safety issues effectively among all members of staff, proactively.
2. Promote a culture of continuous improvement within an organization with regard to its safety performance
An example of how coaching can achieve this is through the implementation of a system that rewards workers who report unsafe conditions in the workplace. Usually, safety processes are focused on compliance issues only; however, if an organization is to achieve a culture of continuous improvement, it typically entails identifying aspects of its performance where improvement can be made through coaching.
When dealing with safety performance issues as part of your organization’s overall management style, it is useful to remember that you are dealing with people and not just safety issues. When an organization fails to appreciate the risk management needs of its workers, it may be perceived as not caring about their safety, which in turn leads to a lack of motivation among employees.
To combat this effect, executive coaching for safety performance should include activities that communicate an organization’s concern for its workers. For example, management might establish a Referee Program where employees are encouraged to report unsafe conditions without fear of punishment or reprisal. In addition, management can hold regular meetings to discuss safety-related issues in the company and ensure that all members of staff are included if they have anything to contribute on the issue.
3. Motivate employees toward a greater commitment to their own safety performance at work
When an organization focuses on ensuring that its workers are aware of the importance of having a positive attitude towards safety, it can achieve enhanced productivity among employees and reduce accidents in the workplace because they have been apprised of the safety risks they might face at work. A good way of achieving this aim is through effective coaching that can make employees realize the importance of having a positive attitude towards the organization’s safety performance.
To encourage a positive attitude among its workers, management should focus on setting goals for individual departments about how to improve their safety performance while being mindful not to make any unrealistic demands in order to ensure that workers can achieve them.
The benefits of executive coaching for teams are well-documented by business and academic research which proves that when executives are coached individually, they in turn coach their direct reports which ultimately results in higher employee engagement, increased productivity, and better performance.
If you want to learn more about how to become a better self-leader and improve your team’s collaboration and decision-making, read more about our articles about executive coaching.
In the meantime, if you’re ready to get started learning how executive coaching can help your team build high performance cultures that will give them an edge in today’s competitive market, we’d love to hear from you.