Coaching Done Right! 8 Key Practices for Managers to effectively Coach Their Teams

Coaching in business is going mainstream. What used to be reserved for senior executives is increasingly available to the many, through an abundance of coaches and online platforms. And, increasingly, coaching is seen as part of the manager’s role, something that employees are coming to expect and that some C-Suite executives want to elevate to a common practice, “a culture”.

This change brings a lack of clarity about what coaching is, how it works and when to use it, which means managers are often ill-equipped to use coaching appropriately. Most managers do not see themselves as coaches, and question how coaching will make their teams more effective and achieve their goals. In addition, coaching is predominantly seen as a tool for personal development rather than a route to high performance.

The purpose of this article is not to define coaching nor to position it in the context of a leadership role, which we’ve done in “Modern Effective Coaching” and in “The Enabling Leader”. It’s written for managers to help them have greater impact when coaching peers or colleagues in the workplace.

This guide captures some of the key learnings from 30 years coaching senior executives and high-performance sports teams. The 8 key practices described below are equally art and science, and we hope that they will inspire you for your next coaching session.