Coaching Skills Training - what is it and how can it help me?

Managers, team leaders, supervisors and all staff who have a responsibility to support and advise others need a range of skills to enable them to be effective in their staff management roles.  One key skill is coaching.

For managers, the ability to coach their staff offers a number of benefits. For example, by adopting a coaching approach, and encouraging staff to find their own answers to issues and challenges, a learning culture is developed and supported. Staff become more motivated as they are enabled to solve problems themselves and encouraged to continuously learn and develop.

Shifting to a coaching style of management, however, requires the development of a specific set of skills.  Line managers who are accustomed to telling staff what to do, or to solving problems themselves, need to develop this new range of skills to enable them to be effective in a coaching style of staff management.

Coaching skills training enables line managers to acquire and practice skills such as:-

• active listening
• questioning
• rapport building
• summarizing
• giving helpful feedback
• challenging constructively
• goal setting

A manager who can coach their staff will benefit from greater commitment, more engagement with work issues, and increased energy and enthusiasm from their staff.

What does coaching skills training entail?

An introductory course in coaching skills for line managers normally takes one day. This time can be broken down into smaller amounts of time over a longer time period, if required.

The training is interactive and entails one-to-one and small group work which provides participants with the opportunity to develop and  refine their coaching skills.  The course provides participants with the skills, confidence and insights to go back to their organisations and begin to put the skills into practice immediately.

A coaching model is introduced as part of the training, to provide a framework within which the coaching skills can be applied.

What are the outcomes and benefits of coaching skills training?

improved performance: staff who are managed with a coaching style learn more quickly and are more engaged and committed to their work

• a learning culture:  a coaching approach helps develop and embed a learning culture in the workplace
• better problem solving: when staff take on the challenge of learning how to think through solutions to problems themselves, a wider range of solutions become available
• better relationships: managers who use a coaching approach develop better relationships with the staff they manage
• increased retention: staff who are coached experience greater job satisfaction and are more likely to stay within the organization
• skills development: staff acquire and develop a wider range of skills