W4D1 Wald Respond2Two

Discussion: Good Coach/Bad Coach

Both positive and negative examples of behaviors and skill sets can be useful in helping to develop your professional skills. Take coaching in a business context, for example. If a former manager built up your knowledge and confidence, guided you through difficulties, and ensured that you had the tools to take on future challenges, then you would likely try to emulate what they did if your goal were to become a better coach. However, if a former manager set ambiguous expectations, offered little assistance, and micromanaged your daily routine, then you could also use that experience to be a better coach by vowing never to turn out like them.

In this Discussion, you will explore one positive and one negative experience you have had with being coached by a manager, coach, or other leader, including how you will use this knowledge to further your own development as a coach.

To prepare for this Discussion:

· Think back across your experiences of being coached by others, specifically coaches you found particularly effective and particularly ineffective—and why.

Assignment:

Respond to two or more of your colleagues’ posts in one or more of the following ways:

· Provide a supporting or alternate perspective on your colleague’s example of an effective or ineffective coaching situation.

· Share a related personal experience of effective or ineffective coaching and its impact on you individually.

· Suggest one or more additional takeaways that your colleague might consider.

· 3 – 4 paragraphs

· No plagiarism

· APA citing

1st Colleague – Nicole Strauss

N. Strauss - Week 4

Discussion Post

I have encountered several coaching sessions during my nursing career, some effective and some ineffective.  One effective coaching experience was my first preceptor as a new nurse.  As a new nurse, my first nursing job was on a busy medical-surgical unit within a large teaching institution.  My preceptor, Eileen, was a veteran nurse unit on the unit and often held the charge nurse position.  Eileen was supportive yet firm in the skills, protocols, and safe practices that I needed to master to complete my orientation successfully.  As referenced in the Harvard Business School Press (2006) article "Becoming a better coach," the coaches used during my experience were direct and supportive.  Eileen used a combination of direct and supportive coaching during our time together during my lengthy orientation. 

My orientation process was an excellent example of coaching as we developed an action plan with measurable goals, a timetable, and clear expectations for successful completion.  The beginning of my orientation required a tremendous amount of direct coaching, with Eileen needing to show/teach me the basic nursing skills.  The supportive coaching approach was practiced by Eileen throughout our time together.  We always had realistic discussions, we debriefed at the end of each shift, and often worked long hours to ensure my learning and her teaching were productive and effective.  She constantly encouraged me to learn and grow in my knowledge.  Eileen was proficient at giving feedback, both positive and negative.  As noted in the Harvard Business School Press (2006) article "Closing the gaps and improving performance," Eileen always observed my work. She kept her feedback focused on the success of my orientation.  The skills and knowledge that I gained from Eileen have been invaluable throughout my nursing career. 

An example of an ineffective coaching experience in my career has been with a former senior clinical director.  Sheila attempted to be a supportive boss and took an interest in me as a person, but she was not knowledgeable about the hospice work that occurred in my admissions department.  This knowledge deficit and lack of coaching ability did not enable our department to overcome challenges.  Sheila attempted to be a good listener, but she did not "hear" me during our meetings.  As Bergman (2016) stated, "empathy is listening to another person's view to their satisfaction until they believe they were heard." Sheila was quiet when I spoke during our one-on-one meetings, but her responses did not acknowledge her understanding of my challenges. 

Sheila could have delegated my learning needs to someone else in the organization if the area was not her expertise.  As referenced in the Harvard Business School Press (2006) article "Becoming a better coach," there are three benefits of delegation.  One conserves the manager's time, two provides personal development of the employee (me), and three facilitates the coach (Sheila) to become more proficient.

The key takeaways for me in the above evaluations of my two coaching examples are as follows. As a leader/coach, I always try to listen, repeat back to acknowledge the issue, and have my team feel heard and valued.  I gained knowledge in the importance of building trust, which makes coaching experiences more valuable. The most valuable lesson from these experiences and our learning resources this week was the importance of being a good role model for team members.  As stated in "Becoming a better coach," a manager's team is always watching, observing how one delegates, communicates, handles time management, continuous learning, and improvement.  The major takeaway for me as a leader is to manage my behavior and work performance as I want my team to emulate.

 

References:

Bregman, P. (2016). Skills for a difficult conversation [Video]. Skillsoft. https://laureate.skillport.com

Harvard Business Review Press. (2006). Closing gaps and improving performance: The basics of coaching. In Performance management: Measure and improve the effectiveness of your employees (pp. 1–19). Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.

Harvard Business School Press. (2006). Becoming a better coach. In Performance management: Measure and improve the effectiveness of your employees (pp. 1–14). Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.

2nd Colleague - Natasha Mills

Natasha – Week 4 Discussion 1

Coaching is a critical component for effective leadership. Leaders who coach their followers report increased productivity, engaged and committed employees, strengthened relationships, heightened self-esteem, employees who take responsibility, a resilient workforce, and a stronger organizational culture (Perla Coaching and Consulting, 2017). All these benefits are tied to organizational success, which all leaders are always striving to achieve. This is because organizational success is associated with effective leadership. From this perspective, it is anticipated that every leader integrates coaching into their styles to realize effectiveness. However, this is usually not the case. As Milner & Milner (2018) put it, most managers perceive telling employees what to do as coaching, a concept that is far from what coaching actually is. My work experience contains instances of both effective and ineffective coaching, with each having a different impact on my productivity and motivation.

When I first got employment, I met a manager that can be described as a bad coach. Joining a new organization, let alone being newly employed, comes with a lot of anxieties that could cripple one’s performance and job satisfaction. This is what I was experiencing when I joined a certain organization my first time working. The manager that I met did not help in easing my anxieties. Instead, he made it flare up with the nature and tone of the feedback he provided, as well as his bad temper. The manager was highly task-oriented and would raise his voice whenever tasks were not finished within the provided deadline, and label anyone who did not meet the goals of a task as incompetent. He would also reassign responsibilities when he felt like a colleague was not meeting a deadline or goal, even though the goals were most often not clear. Setting clear goals, job responsibilities, and discussing behavior expectations are some of the initial steps to coaching (Jones, 2012)). The manager did not take such actions, a factor that set him to fail as a coach.

The actions of the manager at my first organization prompted me to look for another job. His management style led me to consider the reputation of an organization and read employee reviews before sending an application. As a result, I managed to land a job at an organization where I met a manager that was very effective at coaching. First, the manager had high levels of empathy based on how he always sought to understand the situation from the perspective of the employee. For instance, when I was not meeting the goals of a task, which would be set at the beginning of a project, the manager would initiate a conversation in which he was determined to really know what was going on and how that was affecting my inability to deliver. From that point we would collaborate to find a way forward. During such moments, the manager would not judge or criticize me for poor performance, making it easy to address any issues that were affecting my ability to complete tasks efficiently. This leads me to concur with Bregman (2017) that the first thing to do when an employee is struggling to meet goals is to listen to them, find out what is going on, and show empathy. The manager used this approach with every employee whose performance was unsatisfactory and the results were always remarkable.

The actions of the ineffective coach significantly contributed to employees’ inability to meet goals. The employees were always focused on completing tasks that it became impossible for them to collaborate. At the same time, the constant changes to job responsibilities and the absence of discussions on expected competencies and behaviors worsened their ability to meet deadlines and goals. Therefore, the most fundamental actions that the ineffective coach would have taken to be better include the clear definition of goals and expected competencies, reviewing job responsibilities, as well as any changes made (Jones, 2012). The ineffective coach could also improve his listening and empathetic skills because they are fundamental to helping and collaborating with a struggling employee, and thereby coaching (Bregman, 2017).

From both experiences, the first key takeaway is that it is essential for a leader to know his/her coaching strengths and weaknesses. Most leaders tend to think that they are good coaches even when they are ill-equipped (Milner & Milner, 2018). The second takeaway is that good listening skills and empathy are the foundations of coaching since they open the doors for further coaching action. The third takeaway is that coaching is one of the keys to effective leadership due to its benefits of increased productivity, motivation, and employee engagement.

Bregman, P. (2018). Leading with Emotional Courage: How to Have Hard Conversations, Create Accountability, and Inspire Action on Your Most Important Work. John Wiley & Sons.

Jones, R. G. (2012). How to Be Good at Performance Appraisal by Dick Grote.

Milner, J., & Milner, T. (2018). Most managers don’t know how to coach people. But they can learn. Harvard Business Review, 2-5.

Perla Coaching & Consulting. (2017, July 18). Coaching conversation checklist for smart managers. Perla Coaching and Consulting.  https://www.perlacoaching.com/coaching-conversation-checklist-for-smart-managers/