Coaching
Coaching is a process that involves asking good questions to help the coachee work through a challenge. In the workplace, formal executive coaching is often used to support the development of senior executives, but coaching is also a great tool for supervisors to use with their direct reports on a situational basis. For example, if an employee is stuck on some aspect of implementing a project, a few good coaching questions can help them identify a way forward. This is very empowering and helps the employee grow more than they would if the manager simply told them how to complete the task.
Articles
- How to Hold a Coaching Conversation
Useful summary from the Center for Creative Leadership of how supervisors and managers can coach their team members.
- The GROW Model
Overview of a popular model of coaching that managers can use to support the development and performance of their team members.
- Truth and Courage: Implementing a Coaching Culture with Better Conversations Every Day, By Douglas Riddle
Excellent report explaining the different kinds of culture and effective strategies for creating a coaching culture in your organization.
- The Differences Between Coaching, Mentoring, and Related Fields
Helpful overview from CoachingCultureatWork.com.
Coaching in the Federal Government
- Federal Consulting Group
Fee-for-service group within the Department of the Interior that provides coaching and organizational development services to Federal government agencies. - Leadership Coaching Can Transform the Federal Government
Testimonial published in The Federal Times by a government leader who benefited from coaching.
Books
The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever
Many managers are very quick to diagnise their employees' challenges and offer them advice--advice that is seldom followed. In The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier provides managers clear and actionable tips on how to slow down that advice-giving reflex and instead ask the employee good questions that may help them solve the problem on their own. He urges managers to start from a place of curiosity and he provides seven key questions that any manager can use in various combinations for many kinds of situations. More...
Becoming a Leader-Coach: A Step-by-Step Guide to Developing Your People
The authors of this practical guidebook assert that "Leaders are in the best position to support the development of their people." Encouraging leaders to adopt a developmental mindset, they illustrate how coaching supports the Center for Creative Leadership's Relationship-Assessment-Challenge-Support-Results (RACSR) development model, provide actionable tips on how to hold both formal and informal coaching conversations, and explain how to develop an action plan and follow up. More...
Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions By Knowing What to Ask
Many leaders believe that they have to have all the answers. In Leading with Questions, Michael Marquardt argues that it is far more constructive for leaders to ask well-crafted questions, as doing so can help employees come up with solutions on their own. This helps the employee learn and grow and is also highly motivating, as it gives employees ownership over the solutions they implement. Includes many useful examples of great questions to ask and shows how questions can be used to manage employees, build teams, and promote change. Also provides many useful tips about how to craft penetrating questions--and ask them properly. This is an excellent book for managers who want to add coaching skills to their toolkit. Read More...
Co-Active Coaching: Changing Business, Transforming Lives
The Co-Active coaching model focuses on the whole person and assumes that people are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. The Co-Active coach partners with the client to evoke transformation through the coach's use of curiosity, listening, intuition, self-management, deepening understanding, and helping the client move forward. The authors are the founders of the the Co-Active Training Institute, which offers world-class training and certification for executive coaches. More...