You have attained a position in leadership. It required you to master a discipline by working on Projects, Materials, Sales, or Accounting. You have gone through the grind of learning, working hard, over long hours, occasionally being reprimanded for your mistakes, then being appreciated for your successes, until you created a reputation for the high standard of work you do. You have been recognized for your high level of competence, which is a cut above the rest, and you were promoted to a leadership role. On becoming the leader of a team, you find the contours of your work has changed. Not only are you accountable for a more considerable delivery responsibility, but you also have to lead and manage a team. You understand that people management is different from managing tasks, projects, materials, numbers, or customers. You appreciate that you are now responsible not just for your performance but also that of others. To do this, you need to manage relationships; you need to manage emotions; keep your team motivated and focused on their goals. Now, you have not had to do this before in a business environment. This is a new game for you. A coach could help you to step up your game and ensure that you win in it.
Managing Relationships
As a team leader, you find that you have to manage your relationship with your team, your relationship with other groups that your team works with, the senior leaders to whom you are accountable. Maybe, also some relationships with customers or external agencies as well. Each of these relationships can be different. How you relate to each individual, set mutual expectations, maintain touch-points, manage two-way communication regularly will determine how those relationships work for you. You will need to leverage these relationships to ensure you are delivering to expectations. That’s key to your winning.
Managing Emotions
As you begin to lead and manage your team, you find that how your team members are feeling makes a difference to the results they can achieve. Their emotions have an impact on work. If your team members are feeling anxious or stressed, they may not produce the best outcome. Conversely, if they are excited or enjoying the job, they tend to do better. You may have started to look at your team members for cues in their facial expressions, tone of voice, or body language to interpret how they feel. You can go deeper than merely asking, “How are you?” and getting the clichéd answer, “I’m fine” or “I’m good.” You are learning to be sensitive to your own feelings and those of others. You are learning to control and manage those emotions and developing emotional competence.
Leadership Style and its impact on your Team
As you start focusing on your leadership skills, your leadership style becomes essential in keeping your team motivated and achieving their goals. So, what’s your style? Research shows that a large proportion of leaders tend to be coercive in their styles. Coercive leaders expect immediate compliance with their orders and threaten to punish those who don’t. Did you enjoy working with such coercive leaders? Maybe not much. So what style would you like to follow? A more affiliative style. The Boss, who is nice and friendly? However, you are worried that if you are too nice to your team, they may not respect your authority and may not accomplish their goals. So, what should you do?
Flexibility of Leadership Style
At a gut level, you start recognizing that you need to vary your leadership style according to the situation or the person you are dealing with. How do you do that in a structured manner, consistently? Coaching can help you learn different models of Leadership Styles. Leadership is a fluid practice. We’re always changing and improving how we help our direct reports and the company grow. And the longer we lead, the more likely we need to practice a mix of leadership styles. Most leaders will progress through multiple types of leadership throughout their careers.
Finding or Selecting a Coach
If you have experienced a good manager or leader who helped you with your performance and stepped up your game, you have experienced coaching. Such experiences would have happened on the occasions when the Manager chose to provide it. What if you had a coach who is always available for you whenever you need it. Even though they are literally at the top of their game, top sportspersons have coaches who help them get even better. So, can you. Therefore you need to know how to select a great coach for yourself. The most important criteria for selecting a coach are the following:
- Look for someone who has experience coaching in a similar situation as yours but not necessarily worked in your exact setting.
- Does the coach have a transparent methodology and tell you exactly what process they use—and what outcomes can you expect?
- Good coaches can tell you what they will or will not help you with.
- Be sure to verify that they are accredited and in good standing by being trained by the coaching bodies, such as ICF, EMCC, and CCE. However, their experience and chemistry with you would make the difference.
- Finally, good references from satisfied customers are an excellent thing to have. So, you may like to talk to those the coach has coached before.