Leader as

Coach
A GOOD PRACTICE GUIDE FOR MANAGERS
Table of Contents

Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 3

What is Coaching? ......................................................................................................................................... 4

What Coaching is Not .................................................................................................................................. 4

Coaching in the Leadership Continuum ........................................................................................... 5

The Benefits of Developing a Coaching Style ............................................................................... 6

For the Organisation – A Coaching Culture ...................................................................................... 6

For the Leader ..................................................................................................................................................... 7

For the Team Member .................................................................................................................................... 7

Desired Outcomes of Coaching ............................................................................................................ 9

Awareness ............................................................................................................................................................ 9

Clarity....................................................................................................................................................................... 9

Ownership ............................................................................................................................................................. 9

Empowerment ................................................................................................................................................... 9

Honing your Coaching Skills ................................................................................................................ 10

Coaching Meta-Skills ....................................................................................................................................10

Coaching Skills .................................................................................................................................................10

Coaching in Action .......................................................................................................................................... 12

A Coaching Model ...........................................................................................................................................13

Appendix 1 – Leader as Coach ............................................................................................................. 15

Appendix 2 – GROW Model .................................................................................................................... 16

Introduction

Developing the capabilities of staff is an important part of Enterprise 25, the University’s
Strategic Plan. Organisations can no longer expect to be competitive unless they are able to
attract and retain high performing staff, inspire them and support them to learn continuously.

Coaching is a one-on-one process of professional support, guidance, challenge and

development that has emerged over the years as an invaluable process in:

• facilitating learning
• enabling transfer of knowledge
• improving staff capability for the long term
• facilitating effective delegation of work
• optimising staff performance, and
• creating a productive workplace climate.

Being able to operate as a coach is an integral aspect of a line manager/supervisor’s role

and expectation of leadership at UniSA

This guide explores the elements and benefits of coaching. It provides tips on how to move
to operating as a Manager-Coach, including highlighting the skills needed to make this
transition. In doing so, it links to a range of enablers available to you as part of UniSA’s suite
of development options including both the Women’s Development and Enterprising
Essentials programs. We encourage any feedback you might have on the usefulness of this
resource to assist you in successfully operating in your role of Manager as Coach.

Note: In this Guide we have used the term leader to apply interchangeably with manager and
supervisor. It has been designed as a resource for those in any leadership role.

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What is Coaching?

Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own

performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.

- Sir John Whitmore, 2002.

Coaching provides the opportunity for an individual to work together with another person to:
• discover and clarify what the staff member wants to achieve and align with
organisational goals
• elicit staff-generated solutions and strategies,
• enable a change in an individual’s perception and/or behaviour,
• build individual know-how, skills, confidence and effectiveness, and
• hold the staff member responsible and accountable.

In essence, it provides for immediate on-the-job learning as well as ‘just in time’ learning
tailored to the individual and their particular situation.

What Coaching is Not

Therapy Consulting Mentoring Training

Leader as Coach - May 2022 4

A purist coach does not advise or provide solutions. Instead they facilitate a process
whereby the coachee generates their own solutions and holds themselves accountable to
them. Unlike counselling / therapy, which seeks to ‘heal’ a problem, coaching is performance
and solutions focused. Whilst therapy is often rooted in the past, coaching focuses on
creating a future based on conscious choices made in the present.

Finally, unlike mentoring, the coaching is not about imparting expert knowledge in a
particular field. It is about guiding individuals in self-directed learning, with each person
being the expert on his / her own domain.

• Coaching is a development process in which an individual is supported while

achieving a specific personal or professional competence, result or goal.
• Coaching is a very focused conversation that primarily uses questions to get to the
heart of things and facilitate change and transformation.

Coaching in the Leadership Continuum

Whilst purist coaching does not involve mentoring, instruction and a raft of other skills,
Managers and Supervisors in our work environment here at the University may well find
themselves having to wear several different hats as they are coaching day to day workplace
situations.

As the diagram above depicts as a manager there will be times you will move along the
continuum and utilise different approaches that may be categorised as ‘push’ or ‘pull’
approaches. Where we may ‘push’ information in a more instructional manner, this includes
mentoring where we are giving advice, or utilising a ‘pull’ approach to obtain information
from the employee leveraging from the use of good questioning and reflection opportunities.
Roles overlap and often appear in one interaction, and whilst not all situations will lend
themselves to purist coaching, coaching techniques can greatly assist engagement, clarity,
empowerment and ownership in performance development situations.

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The Benefits of Developing a Coaching Style
For the Organisation – A Coaching Culture
At UniSA, the goal of developing a coaching culture supports strategic development,
empowerment and innovation across the University. A coaching culture develops leadership
capability at all levels of the organisation. Leaders who can engage with their staff to
develop their mastery, autonomy and connection with the outcomes of the University are
key to developing this culture.

Today’s leaders are facing increasing complexity in their work environments, requiring more
adaptive and collaborative ways of working. Leaders are expected to demonstrate high
levels of self-awareness; be able to develop the capabilities of their staff; and be able to
effectively guide and motivate others towards identified goals.

Leaders need to have effective coaching skills to focus their staff on the desired performance
required to achieve a clear end goal. A listening, learning coaching culture where the
strengths of employees are optimised, two-way feedback and learning is the norm, and
commitment to goals is fostered provides the best chance of working with the increasing
levels of complexity facing organisations today.

A 2014 study conducted by the Human Capital Institute (HCI) and International Coach
Federation (ICF) participated in by 500 professionals from different organisations found
measurable increases in employee engagement, financial performance and career
opportunities in those organisations that developed a coaching culture.
Daniel Goleman refers to Six Leadership Styles (refer Appendix 1) in his article Leadership
that Get Results (HBR March-April 2000). Whilst all styles can be beneficial in specific
situations, a coaching style is one of the leadership styles researchers identified as creating a
positive culture and high performance in the team.

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For the Leader

Growing people is enlightened self-interest rather than idealism

that offers no added value

- Sir John Whitmore, 2002.

Leaders ‘get things done through people’ so it makes sense to enhance staff capacity on the
job through coaching. Staff who are coached to perform rather than managed to perform
usually have more investment in the outcomes of their work and the achievement of team
goals. Successfully applied, coaching enables managers to delegate work with more
confidence as the staff member’s capacity increases, freeing them up to work on more
strategic initiatives.

Effective coaching can result in:

• enhanced performance, including increased ability to take initiative and find solutions
to problems
• enhanced productivity due to increased motivation
• strengthened commitment to personal, professional and organisational goals
• increased retention of high performing staff
• greater levels of co-operation with change
• greater commitment to collaboration to achieve results.

For the Team Member

Staff receiving coaching experience the personal benefits of continually improving their skills
and know-how. They increase their levels of self-confidence and job satisfaction and
enhance personal growth as well as career development prospects. These factors can help
to attract and retain high-performing staff.

We all recognise that when we come up with our own goals and our own solutions, we are
much more motivated to achieve them than if we have been told to do something.

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 Image source: Sperton Recruitment

Extrinsic motivation occurs when we are motivated to perform a behavior or engage in an

activity in order to earn a reward or avoid a punishment. Examples include:
• Working towards a goal to please the boss
• Participating in an activity in order to win an award
• Paying your taxes to avoid getting audited

In each of these examples, the behaviour is motivated by a desire to gain a reward or avoid a
negative outcome. Typically, we might hear someone say “I should do…” or ‘I must do…”

Intrinsic motivation involves engaging in a behaviour because it is personally rewarding;

essentially, performing an activity for its own sake rather than the desire for some external
reward. Examples of behaviours that are the result of intrinsic motivation include:
• Striving to complete a goal because you find the outcome personally rewarding
• Participating in a sport because you find the activity enjoyable
• Solving a word puzzle because you find the challenge fun and interesting

A person’s behaviour is motivated by an internal desire to participate in an activity for its own
sake. Coaching engages the individual in co-creating their work. A leader’s skilful
questioning can guide the individual to develop their capabilities through identifying the
parameters of the task, the quality required, who else might need to be engaged in the task
and the timeframes for completion.

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Desired Outcomes of Coaching

Awareness
Internal awareness of perception and feelings about a situation, e.g.
discomfort, frustration, pride, sense of anticipation. A self- awareness of
your own default behaviours and from that greater self- awareness comes
the ability to adapt and self-correct.
External awareness of issues, stakes, consequences and a systems view.

Clarity
Clarity about issues, outcomes and goals. Where am I now? What am I
trying to achieve? How does this fit with our overall direction? What
options do I have available to me? What solution do I think would work
best? What does a quality outcome look like?

Ownership
Ownership is about outcomes and process; having a sense of personal
responsibility and motivation. It leads to improved decision-making,
prioritisation and focus.

Empowerment
Empowerment is about having a clear path to reach goals. Individuals
have a sense of anticipation and a sense of ability and resourcefulness. It
leads to improved relationships and an improved ability to cope with
stressful situations.

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Honing your Coaching Skills
Coaching Meta-Skills
A meta-skill is a high order skill that allows you to engage with functional expertise more
effectively. A useful example of a meta-skill is self-awareness. With self-awareness we can
more accurately identify our strengths and weaknesses, leading to opportunity for further
development.

To support the success of the coaching discussions it is important for the manager-coach to
continually hone their practice in the numerous skill areas including the following:

Compassion – the capacity to genuinely understand another person’s point of view without
judging the merits of that point of view. Empathy in action.

Humility – the capacity of letting go of the need to be the expert in a situation. It involves
bringing a “beginners mind” to a coaching conversation.

Neutrality – listening to your coachee with curiosity, whilst also being aware of your own
thoughts, feelings and perspectives without reacting to either point of view. It involves
seeing the relationships between the different polarities in the “issue” being discussed.

Courage – the capacity to approach a difficult situation and not shy away from potential
conflict. Remaining strong and ‘holding the space’. Being quiet and having a centred sense of
self amidst the chaos.

Coaching Skills
To be effective as a Manager-Coach, a range of capabilities is required. These include being
able to:
• build positive trusting relationships with staff. Coaching depends on a positive
relationship between the coaching leader and staff member being coached. The
relationship needs to be based on trust - where the staff member knows he/she can
come to you and brainstorm issues in a supportive environment and leave with
encouragement and your support to take action on a chosen solution.
• provide quality feedback. You want to deliver feedback that builds motivation not fear
or apathy
• be receptive to receiving feedback. Be open to reflecting on and potentially learning
from what you hear
• practice empathic listening (Empathise, Acknowledge, Reflect, Summarise)
• enable dialogue through open or facilitative questioning

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To ascertain the strengths you will bring to a coaching relationship with your staff, why not
ask your staff what coaching skills they find helpful and where you may have potential ‘blind
spots’. These blind spots may include you asking a lot of closed questions rather than open
questions, offering solutions instead of waiting for the staff member to consider their own
solutions or not taking follow up notes and therefore failing to check in at a later date.

From Manager To Coach

From trying to work out how to To asking your staff how they are best
manage staff managed

From ‘You report to me’ To ‘Tell me how I can help you’

To communicating expectations and being

From telling staff how to behave
an exemplary role model

From controlling staff actions To enabling them to take better actions

From solving all the problems To facilitating staff to solve problems

To building relationships where you can

From tip toeing around staff issues
have frank and open dialogue about issues

From telling staff what to do To building initiative & self-directed action

From delegating tasks that simply get To giving staff challenging assignments that
the job done stretch them

To building a learning culture where the

From building a compliant culture low strengths of employees are optimised, two
in drive and initiative way feedback and learning is the norm, and
commitment to goals is fostered

Review these questions and reflect on the changes you may need to make to enable your
move from being a manager to a coach. Select one of the changes you have identified. What
can you do differently at once to take the first move to operating more as a coach and less
as a manager?

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Coaching in Action
When applied, coaching is:

• Holding a conversation and engaging in dialogue. Coaching is not about telling the
staff member what to do. Rather it is about encouraging them to reflect and learn. As
adult learners, we generally like to create our own solutions rather than be told what
to do.

• Collaborative. Coaching is about brainstorming issues together. Jointly identify

possible solutions to problems.

• Focused on achieving outcomes. You want the staff member to leave your meeting
with a course of action to take.

• Solution focused and future-oriented. With consideration given to the past where
appropriate. When we dwell on the past and a problem, the problem often ‘gets
bigger’. If we focus on the way forward and a solution to the problem, the problem
becomes more manageable and we have the energy to deal with it.

• Challenging to the individual, in a positive way. Ask open-ended questions of the

staff member to encourage them to reflect on the issue or situation and think
through the possible options. This is your opportunity to enable the staff member to
see the situation differently, to embrace a different way of dealing with it, and
potentially to change their approach or behaviour.

• Focused on the staff member. Your aim is to focus on their needs and learning
requirements as well as facilitating ways for them to find the answers (rather than you
providing the answers or directing). You want the staff member to take ownership of
the problem and to take action to solve it. From this they learn and are more likely to
develop capacity to find solutions to problems independently.

• Dependent on high quality feedback. Positive feedback builds self-confidence and

makes people want to take more action. Review how implementation of the action
plan went. Identify learnings. Celebrate successes.

• Encouraging the individuals to achieve. We learn better when we discover for

ourselves. Enable your staff to ‘extend’ themselves and remember ‘blame’ has no
place in coaching!

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A Coaching Model
A popular and effective coaching approach is the GROW model developed by Sir John
Whitmore.

The context for using the GROW model is awareness and responsibility and the skill of
effective questioning is core to using the model effectively.

Goals – identify what is to be achieved

Reality – understand the issue or situation

Options – discuss options or choices available and think through the impact of each

Way Forward – (also known as Will or Wrap Up) agree on a course of action. What is to be
done, when, and by whom and do you have the will to do it

Whilst the GROW model is very effective if you use it in the sequence of the mnemonic, you
can also use it in other sequences. For example, you may not be able to help the individual
set an effective goal, until they have explored the current reality, or a staff member may
come to you with a number of options. You may need to explore these, before returning to
the Goal or current Reality.

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It is important to acknowledge that a coaching approach may not work in all cases. This will
be the case, for example, if a staff member requires excessive personal direction, or if you as
the manager lack the skills to guide the staff member appropriately. When a manager is
responsible for a staff member who needs excessive direction, he/she needs to reflect on
the potential causes of this to guide strategies for dealing with it. For example; it may be due
to a lack of confidence, skills, motivation, clarity about work goals, or a ‘spill over’ from a
previous leadership style that did not encourage self-management. When this occurs, it is
useful to consider the motivational issues carefully and then seek advice from managers or
your local People, Talent & Culture Business Partner on approaches that might be taken to
address the issues identified.

You will find some sample questions for the Grow Model in Appendix 2 of this Guide.
Refer to the Manager’s Toolkit for more information on the above skills.

Be sure to look out for relevant workshops offered as part of the University’s Professional
Development Programs.

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Appendix 1 – Leader as Coach
Goleman’s Six Leadership Styles
T H E S I X L E A D E R S H I P S T Y L E S A T A G L A N C E

Coercive Authoritative Affiliative Democratic Pacesetting Coaching

The leader’s Demands Mobilises people Creates harmony Forges consensus Sets high standards Develops people
modus immediate towards a vision and builds through for performance for the future
operandi compliance emotional bonds participation

The style in a “Do what I tell you.” “Come with me.” “People come first.” “What do you “Do as I do, now.” “Try this.”
phrase think?”

Underlying Drive to achieve, Self-confidence, Empathy, building Collaboration, team Conscientiousness, Developing others,
emotional initiative, self- empathy, change relationships, leadership, drive to achieve, empathy, self-
intelligence control catalyst communication communication initiative awareness
competencies

When the In a crisis, to kick When changes To heal rifts in a To build buy-in or To get quick results To help an
style works start a turnaround, require a new team or to consensus, or to from a highly employee improve
best or with problem vision, or when a motivate people get input from motivated and performance or
employees clear direction is during stressful valuable competent team develop long-term
needed circumstances employees strengths

Overall Negative Most strongly Positive Positive Negative Positive

impact on positive
climate
Appendix 2 – GROW Model
Sample Questions
Goal
• What are the intermediate steps you can identify?
• How will you know that you have achieved that goal?
• What issue would you like to work on?
• What is the timeframe?
• What form of outcome are you seeking by the end of the session?

Current Reality
• Questions to help determine the current reality
• What is the present situation?
• Who is affected by this issue other than you?
• What actions have you taken so far?
• What obstacles need to be overcome?
• How much control do you personally have over the outcome?
• Who else has some control over it and how much?
• What resources do you already have? (Skill, time, enthusiasm, money, support,
etc.)
• What resources will you need? Where will you get them from?

Options
• What would you do if there were no constraints?
• Which solutions would give the best result?
• What are all the different ways you could approach this issue?
• What are the alternatives?
• What else could you do?
• What would you do if you had more time, a larger budget, or if you were the
boss?
• What would you recommend if you were an external consultant looking at
your challenge?
• What would you do if you could start again with a clean sheet, with a new
team?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of these options in turn?
• Which of the solutions appeals to you most?

Way Forward (Will / Wrap Up)

• What will you do to obtain support?
• To what extent does this meet your objectives?
• When are you going to start and finish each action step?
• What will you do to eliminate the roadblocks to your actions?
• What could I do to support you?
• What commitment on a scale of one to ten do you have to taking the agreed
actions?
• What could you do or alter to raise your commitment closer to ten?