The Leader as a Coach

Coaching is the fastest growing business in the world at the moment. There increasing numbers of people setting up as coaches of various types. There are Executive Coaches, Career Coaches, Management Coaches and even Life Coaches!

So what is happening and where does the leader fit into this situation? Does this mean that the leader can appoint a Coach and relieve him or herself of this responsibility?

There are a number of issues that I think are worth gaining an understanding about and I would like to address them in this ‘Thoughts on Leadership’.

I think it is useful to start from the position of understanding what people need rather than what a leader should or should not be doing.

People need support in their job/role/responsibility or, simply, in what they are being asked to do. The level of the support needed depends on a number of factors. It depends on their current level of knowledge and skills, their capability to operate in the environment and their willingness to do what is required on a sustained basis.

This is where coaching and mentoring comes in. I look at the difference between mentoring and coaching like this:

Mentoring is about the Mentor having the knowledge and skills that the person being mentored needs. Coaching is about the Coach having the skills to help the person being coached discover what they need.

For example, if I am a new employee at a company, the Mentor is someone who tells me what I need to know about the company. The Mentor knows how things are done, where things are, how to do business, etc. The Mentor is a knowledge bank of useful information and in many cases has the skills. As the new employee, I can learn from this person and it is someone that I can turn to if I need to find and/or learn something.

A Coach does not necessarily have any knowledge or skills about the organisation or the job I am hired to do. In fact the Coach may not even work in the company or department. The Coach is the person that helps me set goals, identifies my strengths and areas for improvement, and is there to challenge me to improve myself or deal with issues that I may have.

I do not like to see these as two separate roles. I see this as a line, where at the one end is pure Mentoring and at the other end is pure Coaching. As you move from left to right you move away from pure Mentoring into a degree of Mentoring and Coaching until you get to pure Coaching at the other end.

In other words, you can be a pure Mentor (because you have specific knowledge and skills) but equally you can be a bit of a Coach because you can be good at helping people identify their strengths or areas for improvement and even more of a Coach in that you can help them deal with their issues. At the other end of the spectrum, you can be a pure Coach and have no knowledge of the industry or business and purely help someone look at themselves and ask them the questions to draw out their issues and even the solutions.

If you had some knowledge about the job or industry, you may be able to help them solve the problems as well, and that is the ability to also Mentor to a degree.

If we look at the qualities needed to be a Coach compared to a Mentor, we can see the qualities are totally different. A pure Mentor needs to be able to pass on knowledge and skills which requires the ability to communicate, show and impart information in a manner that is understood. As we move across the line towards coaching, we see the skills needed start to change. Half way between Mentor and Coach we see some knowledge and skills being imparted but also the need to guide the person and let them discover for themselves. At the far end of pure coaching the Coach is not imparting any particular knowledge but they are asking the questions to draw the person out and get them to think through issues and outcomes desired.

So, where does the Leader fit into this? Is a Leader meant to be a Coach or a Mentor?

We need to go back to what the follower needs. The follower needs to be given the relevant support and that will vary from person to person. So in truth, the leader needs to provide what the person needs. This does not necessarily mean that the leader has to do the coaching or the mentoring. It may be that the leader gives the responsibility to coach and/or mentor to someone else to do because they are better skilled to do this.

However, the leader needs to be leading that process. In other words the leader needs to be setting the objectives for the coaching and/or mentoring, ensuring that it is the right person and giving active support to the process. The leader needs to be seen to be behind the process.

If the leader has the skills to provide the mentoring and/or coaching, then the leader may take on the role them self. However, the leader is often not the person to do this. In fact in the modern world it is likely that the leader does not have the skills and knowledge to be a Mentor. These days the Mentor may well be the manager and not the leader. A manager normally has a level of knowledge and skills and so they can be Mentors. A leader may have little in the way of specific knowledge and skills but they will be the leader in the process of ensuring that the people get the right support in a way that they need the support.

So this month I am asking you to consider the following questions:

• Am I better placed to be a Mentor than a Coach?
• Where do I support people the best?
• Do I support them best by being their Mentor and/or Coach?
• Would I be more effective in supporting them to facilitate their support by getting them an external Mentor or Coach, depending on what they need?

The skills of a Coach require someone capable of asking powerful questions, drawing out what the person is not asking themselves. The Coach is impartial and focused on getting the best out of the person.

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