7 Skills For Effectively Coaching Employees

Why Develop Coaching Skills? 

Coaching employees has emerged as a critical skill in the workplace. Employee training and development is a number one consideration when retaining employees.

Look, you’re an inspirational leader. You attract exceptional people to your brand, and you’re building an outstanding team. But modern leadership is more than just attracting and inspiring your team. Great leaders know the process starts there, but more nurturing needs to be done to build a truly effective workforce.

Leaders need to coach their teams to achieve the best results. Many excellent coaching skills are not the telling or the showing of skills and information. Coaching empowers employees to create and perform on their own. Coaching is about building strong bonds of respect and trust. Team members who trust their leadership and each other act with confidence.

Best Coaching Skills to Target

1. Clap for the wins

People are motivated not by inspirational speeches but by acknowledgement when they do good. Publicly acknowledge the wins.

2. Co-creation in decision-making

Co-creation in decision-making creates two amazing outcomes. First, when your team is in on the process and they see that it’s fair and open, they will be on board with and more committed to the solutions.

Secondly, including your team is like a mini-masterclass in how a successful leader makes a solid decision. It’s excellent coaching.

3. Coaching through mistakes

If your team is worth their salt, they’ll make mistakes. If not, they’re taking too few risks. And this means the team is staying too much in their comfort zone. No business can thrive when stuck in a rut.

But some leaders punish failure, which only serves to reduce risk-taking—.Instead, coach through mistakes. Coaching through failures builds stronger teams and trust, critical to loyalty and retention.

4. Tailored coaching

Great coaching is employee-centred. If your coaching is tailored to your team’s strengths, you can increase employee engagement. 

Our first inclination would be to mold the employee, to correct their weaknesses, but it doesn’t really work. Employees who are guided to do what they do best most days create the strongest teams. Generally, when you’re doing what you do best, you’re happier and easily more engaged with your task. 

5. Coach compassionately

The emotional state of a manager directly influences the emotional state of your team. If that manager expresses unhappiness, their team will be down. If that manager is happy, the team is happy. Leading by example, a coach will remain neutral in all situations. This emotional state signals to the team that their value isn’t based on perfect outcomes. They’ll trust you more.

6. Communication

Active listening is a critical coaching skill. Stay present and don’t interrupt. Ask questions and summarize the main points of the discussion. Again, this comes down to building a bond and building trust. 

7. Create team trust

Trust in each of your team members is critical to helping each employee focus on their part of the puzzle. Camaraderie makes the whole experience fun and more creative. Team-building exercises help the entire team function together well. Group-building exercises and games are a fun and necessary part of building group trust and cohesiveness.

Use Game Learning to Make Coaching a “Way of Life” as a Manager

Coaching your team should be an ongoing process. Products and services change. The market changes. New members join and others leave. There will always be opportunities to empower your team to achieve their potential. You want to concentrate on soft skills and facilitate in-person team opportunities for brainstorming and development. 

Team-Building Games for The Office

Let 1Huddle handle the knowledge and skill parts of the equation while you concentrate on the people.

1Huddle will take your team’s necessary skills and general knowledge and turn that info into a fun trivia game. The app installs on your employees’ phones, making it easy to use. Employees can learn, review, and compete to make it to the leaderboard. It’s an enjoyable and engaging way to build skills. 1Huddle is also a great team-building game tool for face-to-face or remote team-building. 

The 1Huddle dashboard is a built-in feature. It will show you how each employee is developing, allowing you to identify their skills and strengths and deploy each team member accordingly. 

Let 1Huddle teach your employees the skills and knowledge while you concentrate on listening, supporting and acknowledging each team member to be the best they can be. Contact 1Huddle now for a demo of the app.