The Coach Approach to Leadership 

By Alissa DeWitt

Are you an HR leader who is passionate about elevating employee engagement and creating a thriving company culture? 

According to Gallup’s 2021 State of the Global Workplace Report: 

• 7 out 10 employees are struggling or suffering in their overall lives
• Global employee engagement has decreased to 20%
• Low engagement costs the global economy $8 trillion annually

Here in the U.S., the effects of Covid in people’s lives and in the workplace continue to be a challenge:

• 4 out of 10 employees in the U.S. are struggling 
• Only 34% of the workforce are ‘engaged’
• Approximately 66% are ‘disengaged’

That means 6+ out of every 10 employees are NOT bringing the BEST VERSION OF THEMSELVES to work. 

With stats like these, it is apparent that American leadership philosophies from years gone by no longer work today.

Gallup found that leaders play a very critical role in increasing employee engagement as well as positively influencing employee wellbeing – they accounted for 70% of the variance in team engagement. 

This is why equipping leaders to move from ‘boss’ to ‘coach’ is so critical. 

Making a difference in our world can begin at work…and it starts with your leaders.

From what I have learned over the last three decades in business and leadership, both internally as a corporate Senior HR Leader and externally as a Coach and Consultant, there are 4 critical phases necessary to close the leadership gap and to develop coach leaders capable of transforming workplace culture.

PHASE 01. DISCOVER ~ Understand and leverage leadership DNA & measure the impact leadership is having on the organization.

We’ve seen many leadership programs fail because they go straight into teaching leadership skills without first addressing the leader’s mindset. 

If leaders aren’t aware of ‘WHO’ they are and the ‘IMPACT’ they are having on their team, they are less committed to doing the work of growing themselves as leaders. 

We have a mantra at Executive Impact…“WHO you are is HOW you lead, and how you lead determines the culture and success of your team and organization.”  

This is why we start with DISCOVER, and take a deep dive to:

• Unpack the leadership story to reveal themes, giftings, and triggers,
• Identify ‘natural wiring’ and assess how it can be an asset or potential liability,
• Uncover values and beliefs that drive leadership behaviors, 
• Measure the impact leadership is having on others, and 
• Create a customized development plan to become a ‘Coach Approach’ leader.

Without this deeper self-awareness, most leaders judge themselves by their ‘intentions’ rather than by their ‘actions and impact.’ 

This was apparent with one of our clients – a leader who was unintentionally damaging relationships and being perceived by her team as a dictator and boss without empathy who ‘seemed’ to care only about getting the bottom-line results. 

Phase 01 was a catalyst for her growth. She committed to stretching beyond her comfort zone to learn the Coach Approach principles. As a result, she transformed as a leader and her department became the MODEL of employee engagement in her company. 

PHASE 02. RELATE ~ Elevate accountability, build higher levels of trust, and effectively influence others.

Most leaders either gravitate toward focusing on ‘people’ or they focus more on ‘results.’ Both are important to being an effective leader but being too far on either end of the spectrum can create issues.  

Leaders who focus more on ‘people’ often overwork themselves because they try to take up the slack for their team in an effort to be of service. They may avoid dealing with conflict or holding their employees accountable. 

Leaders who focus more on ‘results’ have a relentless drive toward outcomes yet experience high levels of frustration when others aren’t keeping up. Their tendency to push harder often exhausts their people and can derail relationships.

The RELATE phase is where we equip leaders to balance the two extremes to:

• Build deeper trust with, better relate to, and more authentically influence others,
• Elevate individual and team accountability and ownership, and
• Improve overall communication.

This was evidenced in one of our clients who enrolled their top 39 leaders in a year-long leadership development journey. Each group of leaders participated in monthly, interactive group sessions and practiced what they had learned on-the-job, followed by one-on-one meetings with their leadership coach.

By the end of that year, they hit their best safety record in 25 years while also increasing productivity, efficiency, and quality metrics. Leaders and employees reported a huge improvement in communication and trust, and employee engagement increased 16% in just one year.

PHASE 03. COACH ~ Deep dive into understanding human behavior and develop the mindset and skillset to be a great coach.

Most leaders become leaders because they perform their job really well and, as a result, get promoted up to being the leader of others doing the same work.  

The problem with this very common practice?

The skills it takes to DO the job are not the same skills it takes to LEAD OTHERS doing the same job. 

The transition from individual contributor to leader often creates a skill gap that results in significant stress and frustration for both the leaders and the people they lead.

We know that every leader wants a great team, and every team wants a great leader. That’s why in the COACH phase, we equip leaders with the mindset and skillset to:

• Coach employees UP for success,
• Coach THROUGH conflict, and
• Coach for improved PERFORMANCE – providing consistent feedback and helping employees remove barriers and bring out their full potential.  

PHASE 04. ACHIEVE ~ Accelerate results by empowering others to reach higher levels of success.

In our experience working with leadership teams, we know that ‘a crack at the top of an organization creates a crater on the floor.’

Misalignment of the senior team, whether it’s in relationships or clarity around strategic goals, results in breakdowns throughout the organization. 

This is often evidenced by: competing priorities, departmental silos, poor communication, lower levels of accountability and teamwork, and higher levels of stress in trying to accomplish goals.

In Phase 04, we equip leaders to:

• Clarify the big picture and set meaningful, measurable, and clear goals,
• Effectively cascade goals and decision-making authority, 
• Lead and leverage time by focusing on high payoff activities, and
• Delegate low payoff activities to develop next level leaders and build the leadership bench for the future.

This was the case with one of our clients who was struggling with low levels of employee engagement, breakdowns in teamwork, and decreased profitability in their franchise. 

By starting at the top of the organization to equip their executive team with the Coach Approach principles first, the executive team transformed how they worked together as well as how they led and coached their individual teams. 

As a result, they shared: “The culture and team that we worked diligently in building with your coaching is a true Dream Team. We are ending this year at unimaginable growth in the year of a pandemic.” 

When a leadership team completes the four phases of The Coach Approach to Leadership, not only do leaders individually feel aligned, confident, and energized to build their own highly productive team, but they collectively transform how they work together – setting their people and their company up for higher levels of success.

If developing leaders or building a thriving company culture is on your radar for 2022, we would love to have a conversation with you!