The Most Difficult Coaching Skill for Managers
“Think about your best boss,” asks coaching expert Madeleine Blanchard. “Your best boss is a person who helped you to deliver phenomenal performance, but they also helped you to really grow and develop yourself.”
In a short video interview Blanchard explains that, “Managers who have no idea how to use coaching skills, or use a coach-approach with their people, tend to be very task-focused and very transactional—which is fine—the job gets done. But they don’t retain their people and they don’t get the kind of engagement and discretionary energy that we are all looking for in our organizations.”
One of the biggest challenges is feedback.
“The hardest thing for most managers is giving the hard feedback. It’s saying, ‘This is good but it needs to be better.’ It is so hard for people because they are afraid of damaging the relationship or de-motivating people.”
In a new Coaching Essentials program, Blanchard and coauthor Linda Miller teach managers to build relationships and earn the right to give the hard feedback—and then learn ways to say what needs to be said without being terrified.
Blanchard and Miller’s approach is to teach a mindset, a coaching process, and a skill set—three main things that managers and leaders need to know to build trust, improve workplace positivity, and boost employee work passion.
A new eBook by The Ken Blanchard Companies shares the four essential skills and a four-phased coach-approach for activating the conversation process.
To learn more, download a free copy of the eBook here.
