Managerial coaching outcomes: Good for employees, good for organizations
What would it look like at the organization you work for to have engaged, empowered employees who take ownership of their work and feel valued by their company for their contributions? What kind of impact would that make?
One way organizations are empowering their employees is through coaching. Coaching as a development tool is becoming increasingly common in the workplace. Leaders who coach employees instead of commanding them can build effective relationships and a much more talented and agile workforce, leading to a healthy and growing business. The use of coaching in the workplace has significant, proven benefits.
What is coaching?
Any discussion regarding the benefits of coaching in the workplace must start with defining coaching. Many development approaches get labeled coaching, which could be better labeled as training, managing, or mentoring. So, what exactly is coaching? Coaching has been defined in many ways, but some common themes exist. These themes include helping through facilitation, empowering coached individuals to tap into and build on their own resourcefulness, and focusing on the coached individual’s needs and development through self-directed learning.
Coaching is driven by the person being coached, also sometimes called a coachee. It’s a partnership between the coach and coachee that involves a thought-provoking, reflective, and creative process to inspire individuals to maximize their personal and professional potential. The coach facilitates the coachee’s creation of strategies and solutions, encouraging them to take control of their own learning, using their own experiences and knowledge when finding solutions.
“Coaching is unlocking people’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is more often helping them to learn rather than teaching them.” – John Whitmore
Coaching in the workplace is no longer reserved for executives or performance improvement situations; it’s being implemented at all levels of organizations for a wide variety of purposes. There are three main types of workplace coaching: external, internal, and managerial coaching. External coaching is conducted by individuals who are not employees at the organization where they are providing their coaching services. Executive coaching usually contracts with external coaches. Internal coaches are employees of the organization whose only or main job within the organization is to coach other employees. Managerial coaching refers to a specific type of coaching in which a supervisor, manager, or leader uses coaching techniques to engage, develop and empower their direct reports.
Benefits of coaching in the workplace
Some benefits of coaching in the workplace are better communication skills, employee engagement, improved decision-making, leadership development, improved performance, better manager-employee relationships, improved productivity, teamwork, and better employee well-being.
These benefits of coaching can provide a company with a competitive advantage. The most common way coaching is delivered in an organization is through managers and leaders using coaching techniques. These benefits have increased the demand for managerial coaching. In fact, the demand for managerial coaching has grown exponentially over the last decade and is projected to continue to grow. Lawrence (2017) reported that one learning and development survey from 2015 reported that 80% of organizations in the UK expected their managers to coach their direct reports.
Managerial coaching
Managerial coaching is different from traditional management approaches. It emphasizes empowering, caring, and participatory management approaches rather than controlling and directive. Managers incorporate coaching skills into daily interactions that enable employees to grow and develop. Evidence-based effective managerial coaching practices have common themes that facilitate learning. These themes are “creating a learning environment, caring and supporting staff, providing feedback, communicating, and providing resources including other people” (Beattie et al., 2014, p. 188).
Managerial coaching outcomes
Managerial coaching outcomes can be divided into three somewhat overlapping categories: Individual, interpersonal, and organizational. Individual outcomes include:
- Goal attainment
- Increased well-being
- Reduced stress and burnout
- Confidence
- Organization-based self-esteem
- Job and work satisfaction
- Personal learning
- Role competence
- Role clarity
- Self-awareness
- Self-efficacy
- Self-determination
- Career development
- Innovative behaviors
- Creative problem-solving
The interpersonal outcomes relate to the relationship dynamics within the organization. There is a clear relationship between managerial coaching and the working relationship between the manager and the direct report. Team members feel valued, supported, and respected when coached. According to DiGirolamo and Tkach (2019), 73% of employees surveyed felt that their manager using a facilitative approach changed their relationship. Managerial coaching is also a significant predictor of perceived manager trustworthiness. A manager’s trustworthiness affects their direct reports’ behavior, attitudes, and willingness to engage in extra-role behaviors
A study by Beattie et al. (2014) found that effective managerial coaching creates powerful results for coachees and their organizations. These outcomes result from improving communication and conflict resolution and fostering teamwork, team cohesion, and team learning. These individual and interpersonal benefits extend indirectly to the organization in several ways. Increased team and organizational efficiency and effectiveness lead to reduced team project budgets and duration, saving the organization money. Increased employee engagement and motivation lead to increased task and sales performance and customer service quality and satisfaction. Greater organizational commitment leads to decreased turnover intentions. Finally, managerial coaching is related to more significant organizational leadership development.
Coaching can have a significant impact on organizations. When managers and leaders take a more facilitative approach, they give their team members more autonomy. They empower their employees by encouraging their team members to participate in discussions, problem-solving, and decision-making. Coaching as a management style enables managers to solve problems creatively, enhance engagement and well-being, and increase performance in ways that connect with today’s workforce. Now is the time to make a positive impact on your employees by taking a coach approach with them.
References (full list available upon request)
- Beattie, R. S., Kim, S., Hagen, M. S., Egan, T. M., Ellinger, A. D., & Hamlin, R. G. (2014). Managerial coaching: A review of the empirical literature and development of a model to guide future practice.
- DiGirolamo, J. A. & Tkach, J. T. (2018). An exploration of managers and leaders using coaching skills.
- Lawrence, P. (2017). Managerial coaching – A literature review.
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How could these managerial coaching outcomes impact your organization?
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