What is coaching?
Coaching is a technique of guiding and developing the skills and abilities of your employees. As a manager, it’s essential to lead teams, develop and execute sales goals and provide guidance to your employees. As talented as a leader can be, all managers require a strong team behind them. So, to unlock the full potential of the team, leaders must provide ongoing coaching. So, if you are a leader seeking to build a winning team, continue reading to discover the coaching type that best suits you and will assist your team in achieving its goals!
Benefits of coaching
Implementing coaching into your daily routine encourages growth, development, and success not just for the employees you coach but also for yourself. More specifically, coaching provides several advantages:
- Boosting individual performance: coaching helps employees improve their skills and competencies, leading to higher productivity and efficiency.
- Increasing engagement: employees are more likely to be confident and take ownership of their tasks.
- Stronger team relationships: building up stronger relationships between team members can lead to better collaboration and trust.
What are the main coaching types?
When it comes to coaching, it’s not a case of one size fits all. These days, there are numerous different coaching types all coming with their own set of pros and cons. Therefore, before embarking on a new coaching strategy, you need to carefully consider which type of coaching you want to provide.
Democratic Coaching
When comparing different types of coaching strategies, the democratic coaching type is a game changer. This type of coaching can be described as a collaborative, engaging, and creative approach that inspires all team members. Compared to other styles, this type of coaching gives employees more control and fosters an environment of trust and respect. It provides a safe environment for employees to explore their strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for growth. If you have complex tasks or problems that require expertise from multiple sources, you should consider this coaching type. Finally, remember that a democratic coaching approach will improve team performance and motivation by giving sense of autonomy and accountability!
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Autocratic Coaching
An autocratic coaching style has a clear and strict structure, where the leader is in charge and makes all the decisions. Employees typically have no influence or input other than to listen to clear instructions. Given this explanation, you might be wondering what the benefits actually are to autocratic coaching.
Autocratic coaching can be beneficial and vital in the short term. Stressful situations necessitate quicker decisions and immediate solutions. Autocratic coaching can also be recommended if your team lacks the experience or needs to be trained on a skill fast. By performing autocratic coaching you will show clear steps and direction, ensuring that all goals are met!
Laissez-faire Coaching
Before we dig in, let’s just clarify what "laissez-faire" means? In a nutshell, "laissez-faire" can be directly translated from French as “let you do”, in other words, “leave alone.”. In business, a laissez-faire style refers to standing back from your team and keeping your hands off the main decisions.
Businesses looking for innovative ways to empower their employees can use this coaching style. If you already have a high level of trust in your team’s capabilities then it may make sense to take a step back and just let them do their thing. Seeing how your team will complete specific tasks or projects can improve your employees' skills and capabilities by giving them complete ownership of their roles. Even though this method might be risky, it can help new employees learn skills like self-confidence and improve decision-making.
However, this does not mean that you can be complacent.As a leader, you still have to take responsibility when things go wrong. Therefore, this coaching approach may not be appropriate for new, inexperienced employees who need more guidance or where you are still building up trust in the relationship.
Vision Coaching
Is your priority to improve your team skills and competencies? In that case, then there is no better choice than vision coaching! Vision coaching aids your team members through defining their objectives and establishing clear milestones for achieving them, promoting continuous development. In short, the vision coaching method represents a partnership between you and the employee.
Vision coaching involves setting personal and professional goals, figuring out which goals are attainable, and coming up with a detailed plan for how to reach them. To get the most out of vision coaching, regular one-on-one meetings should be held to discuss objectives, provide feedback, and track progress. In Plecto, have an amazing coaching tool, which will help to improve your employee performance! This is particularly useful for 1:1 meetings! You can visualize the entire process and track the progress of your employees, resulting in valuable coaching outcomes. Additionally, you can take notes, upload files or invite other participants to the meeting.
Transactional Coaching
Do you feel that your team has incredible potential? Transactional coaching identifies the employees' strengths and weaknesses, helps them set attainable goals, and develops the skills and mindset needed to become the best version of themselves.
Typically, to achieve new objectives, you must leave your comfort zone and face new challenges head on. Stepping out of your comfort zone can help for personal growth and achieving new goals! By doing so, your employees will gain confidence, motivation, and self-confidence, resulting in a lasting transformation. Finding new ways to motivate your employees requires leaving their comfort zone, which is not the easiest of tasks.
Plecto has some suggestions that will unquestionably increase team motivation! We have personalized performance agreements, where you and your employee can set goals.Investing in performance management tools pays off. Developing strengths and a growth mindset can help retain top talent! With Plecto real time dashboard features, you can optimize your 1:1 meetings by freely deciding what goals your team should strive for, and it can be completely confidential. One on ones will definitely boost professional employees growth and improve individual performance!
How do you choose the right coaching type?
When choosing a coaching style, it's important to think about the skills and personalities of the employees. If an employee has sufficient experience and confidence, choosing a laissez-faire coaching style would be a smart choice. However, if an employee requires direction or support, an autocratic management style may be the best option. If your organization has long-term goals, vision coaching would be an excellent choice. Consider transformational coaching if your employee is going through significant changes or challenges.
You should also remember to consider other factors, such as your employee's personality type, communication style, and the goals you want to achieve together!
Plecto is a great companion for coaching!
Plecto is a great tool for achieving your goals regardless of the coaching approach you choose! With performance agreements, 1:1 template features and real-time performance tracking, Plecto's real-time dashboards are an excellent tool for coaching your employees! Try it for 14 days for free and unleash the full potential of your team!
