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Results! Why leaders need to be great coaches

Guest post by: Gary Schleifer

Article Overview: Coaching represents the most significant trend in leadership development within organizations in the last 25 years. Organizations of every size are interested in increasing bench strength, improving succession planning and elevating performance of employees at all levels. With tight budgets in a tough economic climate, organizations are looking for internal solutions. Instead of hiring external coaches, can managers perform this vital function? While most managers intellectually know the value of coaching, they aren’t necessarily convinced that the payoff is there. Citing time challenges and increasing workloads, managers wonder if coaching is any more effective than directing and giving advice. The answer is clear: coaching works ~ By Kathleen Stinnett

Results! Why leaders need to be great coaches

Coaching represents the most significant trend in leadership development

within organizations in the last 25 years. Organizations of

every size are interested in increasing bench strength, improving

succession planning and elevating performance of employees at all levels.

With tight budgets in a tough economic climate, organizations are looking

for internal solutions. Instead of hiring external coaches, can managers perform

this vital function? (And isn’t that a critical role of managers: developing

their people for greater performance and capability?)

While most managers intellectually know the value of coaching, they aren’t

necessarily convinced that the payoff is there. Citing time challenges and

increasing workloads, managers wonder if coaching is any more effective

than directing and giving advice.

The answer is clear: coaching works.

Coaching Impacts Turnover

Organizations invest heavily in recruiting and training employees. Retaining

talent is a central focus of most organizations, and it is common for organizations

to have good measures of retention and employee turnover. But such measures

are always after the fact—turnover is measured only in hindsight.

However, there is one measure that has been shown to be an excellent predictor

of turnover: the extent to which employees indicate they are thinking about

quitting and going to another organization. As a rough measure, in normal

times, approximately one-half of the people who tell you that they are thinking

feature

By Kathleen Stinnett, BS, MS, MCC

Results!

Why leaders need to be great coaches

“Citing time challenges and

increasing workloads, managers

wonder if coaching is any more

effective than directing and

giving advice.”

about quitting will actually terminate

within the next 12 to 18 months.

If the organization is seeking ways

to minimize that talent erosion, the

data in Figure 1 should be of interest.

Zenger Folkman research indicates

that more than half of the employees

reporting to managers who are the

least effective at coaching are thinking

about quitting. In contrast, less

than a quarter of those reporting to

the best at coaching were harboring

those same thoughts of leaving.

Improve coaching, and there is a

strong likelihood that you will

reduce turnover.

Coaching Improves

Employee Engagement

Through 360-degree surveys, Zenger

Folkman also found that leaders who

are more effective at coaching have

employees who are far more engaged

and committed. The following graph

(Figure 2) shows the overall impact

of coaching effectiveness on employee

commitment and engagement.

Managers who don’t coach well are

far more likely to have disengaged

employees. And we all know that disengaged

employees don’t necessarily

have just a neutral impact; they can

also do damage – to customer relationships,

to projects, and to relationships

with team members.

Managers who coach well, however,

have employees who are far more

engaged and committed.

Zenger Folkman has also demonstrated

that effective coach/managers

have employees who:

• Feel like they are valued.

• Are more satisfied with the organization

as a place to work.

• Feel like they are given opportunities

to grow and develop.

• State they put in greater effort.

• Are more willing to “put in the

extra mile.”

When I ask managers, “If all of your

direct reports were highly engaged,

what difference would it make?” the

answer invariably is, “All the difference

in the world.” When employees

are more engaged and committed, the

results show the impact.

Coaching Impacts Results

In a 2005 Sales Executive Council

study on sales representative performance,

sales reps who reported to

highly effective coaches outperformed

reps reporting to less effective

coaches by 19 percent. Sales reps

working for the best managers at

coaching were over 100 percent of

plan; reps reporting to the worst at

coaching were only 83 percent of plan.

The Bank of Ireland found that

customer satisfaction increased

when a coaching framework was

implemented within the organization.

Customers reported a 3 percent

increase in “feeling valued as a customer,”

and a 5 percent increase in

“satisfaction with our relationship

manager.” While these numbers may

not seem significant, Sears conducted

a study years ago that demonfeature

“Managers reporting to senior

leaders who were skilled at

coaching outperformed their

peers by 27 percent.”

strated that a 1.3 percent increase in

customer satisfaction led to a 0.5

percent increase in revenue. These

numbers add up quickly!

Research conducted in 2006 by the

Learning and Development Roundtable

compared the performance of

managers reporting to someone ineffective

at coaching to that of managers

reporting to someone effective

at coaching and found a significant

difference in overall performance.

Managers reporting to senior leaders

who were skilled at coaching outperformed

their peers by 27 percent.

Coaching Effectiveness

So if coaching makes such a difference,

how are organizations doing

today? Jack Zenger and I recently led

a webinar regarding building coaching

capability within organizations.

With over 300 leaders in attendance,

we asked “poll” questions to assess

coaching effectiveness in organizations

currently.

When asked, “What grade would

you give the managers (coaching

effectiveness) in your organization?”

participants responded:

• “A”: Extraordinary coaching –

making a significant difference 2%

• “B”: Good coaching – having a

positive impact 16%

• “C”: Average coaching – helpful 43%

• “D or F”: They do it so poorly it

hurts more than helps 17%

• “I”: Incomplete – they just don’t

do it! 21%

We were frankly surprised by how

few respondents believed that their

leaders were actually providing helpful

coaching, and shocked by how

many leaders weren’t coaching or

were perceived as actually doing

damage in the process of coaching

employees.

When we asked whether these

same organizations were helping

equip managers with the necessary

coaching skills to be effective, a full

46 percent of respondents reported

that their organizations were not

building coaching skills for leaders.

It is no wonder that managers are

therefore not providing coaching, or

the coaching being provided is not

perceived as helpful.

Coaching = Results

The results are in: coaching is a very

powerful lever to increase organizational

effectiveness. Instead of viewing

coaching as “nice to do” when the

rest of business gets taken care of,

consider reversing the order of priority.

Focus on coaching as the way to

enable superior results and foster

engaged employees. The payoff will

be there at the bottom line.

feature

“A manager’s coaching effectiveness impacts

employees’ intention to stay with the organization,

their overall engagement levels, and their willingness

to go the extra mile.”

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Article Tags: choice magazine, coaching, development, leadership



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