ATTN. Employers: Offer Professional Coaching as an Employee Benefit

By Delano Garner

Today's work environment is increasingly complex. Leaders need skill sets not traditionally offered in undergraduate and even graduate curricula. Furthermore, they need to update and refresh these skills quarterly, monthly, and even weekly to keep pace with a rapidly changing business culture. Providing a personal leadership coach is one way to help the key people in your organization overcome the challenges they encounter every day.

Every individual brings with them certain passions and talents, and the job of a leadership coach is to align these with the vision and goals of your team. By offering a personal and unbiased thought partner, a coach provides an important benefit to the emerging or seasoned leaders within your organization.

A leadership coach assists in five main areas:

The ability to persuade others through media or presentation is natural for some and acquired for others. In both cases, being able to calmly and clearly explain an idea is a skill that can be enhanced through practice and self-analysis.

Sometimes an organization's most seasoned employees suffer from being set in their ways and resistant to change. The best way to overcome this is by modeling adaptability: When the leader shows an ability to learn, grow, and stretch, even dug-in employees will try to follow suit.

Within the chaos of every problem is a solution that can make your organization even better. "Focus on the opportunity, not the problem" is the message that best serves the emerging and veteran leaders of today's rapidly changing business environments. This begins with a positive attitude but also involves the willingness to see problems as they really are in order to develop solutions that will work.

Data is very useful in pointing out blind spots and informing organizations of possible areas of improvement. Coaching helps take this idea further by asking and giving guidance around questions like "How do I best communicate to my staff the changes that are needed? What does my staff need from me to make these changes feasible? How do I get them to buy in to change rather than resisting it?"

The effective leader must be able to recognize conflicts that are impeding smooth functioning and negotiate win-win solutions. Often this requires understanding the personalities involved and how they relate to each other. A good coach assists in attaining the vital skill of holding multiple perspectives while staying on-course toward goal achievement.

We've seen it over and over again; coaching benefits the leader and their teams with quantifiable results. It also works as a powerful recruiting and retention tool and most reputable coaches offer complimentary sessions to help ensure a good match before an investment is made.

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