Coaching the team members is one of the basic responsibilities of a people manager. It is difficult to find an individual development plan that doesn't include 'coaching by the manager' as a key development action. So, what is paradoxical about 'manager-as-coach'?
A paradox occurs when there are multiple perspectives about something, each of them are true, but they seem to contradict one another. Let's look at some of those perspectives on 'manager as coach'
- Every manager should be a coach and every conversation should be a coaching conversation
- Managers are supposed to achieve predefined results through their team members. Since coaching in its true sense is supposed to be non-directive, there is a fundamental contradiction in managers trying to act as coaches.
- Because they work with the team members very closely, managers are in the best position to coach their team members.
- Coaching is essentially future-focused, having too much knowledge about the coachee's past behavior can make it difficult to start the coaching with a 'clean slate'
- Coaching by the manager can significantly improve the performance of the team member, that too very quickly
- Coaching is a time-consuming activity. Coaching is often 'hard work' for both the manager and the employee. Sometimes, there are faster or more effective ways to improve employee performance (like giving direct advice, training, shadowing a high-performer etc.)
- Coaching is a natural part of the manager's role
- Coaching requires skills that many of the managers haven't developed (though the managers might not be aware of this/might consider themselves to be excellent coaches)
- Coaching can be a great way to increase employee connect and trust
- For coaching to work, there should be a very high level of trust and psychological safety. This could be an unrealistic expectation in many contexts.
So, how do we resolve this? One possibility is to look at the tacit definitions of coaching that underlie these varying perspectives. There are indeed a wide range of interpretations possible when it comes to 'coaching' (see 'metaphors for coaching' for some of the interpretations of coaching). Coaching is an 'unregulated industry' - there can be as many interpretations of coaching as there are coaches.
The ICF (International Coaching Federation) interpretation of coaching is perhaps the most widely accepted one. ICF defines coaching as 'a partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential'. Yes, if one explores the ICF coaching competencies in detail, it becomes clear that coaching is meant to be 'non-directive' endeavor.
However, on the other end of the spectrum, there are interpretations of coaching that looks at coaching essentially as a 'feedback and insights sharing process'. Of course, there are many other definitions of coaching that lie in between these two extremes.
It is indeed true that the manager-employee interactions (including the coaching interactions) are happening in the context of the organization hierarchy and the work related goals/deliverables. It is also true that coaching works best when there is no power imbalance in the coaching relationship. However, to what extent the power-hierarchy seeps into particular interactions between particular sets of managers and employees can vary significantly. The organization culture can also be a key factor here, apart from individual-specific factors.
Yes, it can be argued that 'while the manager is paid to get defined work outcomes through the employees, this doesn't mean that the manager can't take a non-directive approach'. On the other hand, it can also be argued that so long as outcomes are defined by the manager/organization (and not by the employees), it is only a matter of semantics whether the manager is 'inspiring the employee' or just 'motivating the employee through rewards and punishment' (see 'the power of carrot and stick' for more details) to achieve those defined goals/outcomes.
Non-directive coaching is an invitation to explore and not a compulsion to do a particular thing. Since the managers are accountable for the results (even when they have delegated the task to their team member), if the employee fails to achieve the desired results it will be viewed as failure on the part of the manager also. So, the managers often have more 'skin in the game' (as compared to an external coach) and this might prompt them to switch to more directive ways of functioning when the non-directive ways don't seem to be working well enough (or fast enough).
Yes, helping the employee to arrive at his/her own solutions is better from the point of view of building ownership and building capability. Sometimes, this can also lead to better solutions. This works best when the employee has the necessary expertise/can arrive at an effective solution within the constraints imposed by the situation.
However, sometimes, the employee needs 'direct advice' and it is much simpler (and easier on both the manager and the employee) if the manager makes a suggestion to the employee that he/she can consider a particular course of action, as opposed to facilitating a long process of exploration that leads the employee to the same answer! Similarly, there could be crisis situations that require immediate response and such situations might force a manager to switch from a more facilitative style to a more directive style.
Also, if the employee lacks specific skills or resources to do the job effectively, attempting to fix it through coaching is guaranteed to fail. Yes, helping the employee to develop the skills and get the resources required to be effective on the job is very much part of the manager's job. The point here is just that coaching is not the right way to make this happen! Coaching is no 'silver bullet' and it is not the panacea for all problems!
Maybe, we can take some sort of a 'situational leadership' kind of perspective and say that managers need to adopt various styles/definitions of coaching depending on the context. Maybe, what is required is to find the right dynamic equilibrium between polarities like ''telling and exploring', 'directing and facilitating', 'interests of the organization and interests of the employee', 'authority and partnership', 'defined outcomes and possibilities', 'performance and development' etc.
However, all these require a very high level of skill and awareness on the part of the managers. It also calls for a very high degree of trust and openness on the part of the employees. Else, this can be highly confusing and frustrating for both the parties involved. Of course, if the employees perceive the 'facilitative' approach of the manager to be a tool for manipulation, it can lead to loss of trust!
Coaching is indeed a learnable skill though it requires a significant amount of effort/practice. It makes sense for the organization to adopt a particular model/framework for manager-as-coach and train the managers on it. These manager coaches should also be provided mentoring by experienced coaches so that they can improve their awareness and coaching skill and also develop the flexibility to switch between the various styles of coaching based on the context. Yes, creating positive examples for the managers, that will convince them that there could be alternatives to the more directive ways of functioning, can put the managers in the right frame of mind that will make the manager training and mentoring efforts mentioned above more effective!
'Pure' non-directive kind of coaching is easier to do for an external coach as compared to a people manager. Even in the case of external coaches, it is important to clarify and agree on what can and what can't be expected from the coach. The need the employee has might not neatly fit into what can be fully addressed within the domain of coaching. Hence there is always the risk of the coaching conversation drifting into the domains of mentoring, teaching or even therapy. This is not necessarily bad so long as it is not 'disguised as coaching'.
Employees tend to put the coaches (including managers in the coaching hat) on a pedestal. They might even want the coach to do the thinking for them. While many of the people managers might be very happy to fulfill such roles/expectations, it might take them further away from the 'facilitative' nature of coaching!
Any ideas/comments?
