How to Increase the Impact of Leadership Coaching?

If you have been wondering how much money your organization has spent on training or coaching and what results have been achieved, this blog is for you.

Typically, at the end of a coaching day, the immediate feeling is evaluated—how participants experienced the training day. However, measuring just the feeling is not a guarantee of a change in behavior.

In leadership training, participants are often flooded with (new) information. However, the problems in leadership are rarely tied to a lack of knowledge. Almost all supervisors can describe what good leadership looks like.

If a lack of knowledge or a positive feeling during training is not the bottleneck, what then drives change in behavior and integrates the learned lessons into daily operations? Based on over twenty years of experience, the following six factors stand out above the rest:

1. Behavior change requires a shift in thinking. When psychological safety is established in coaching sessions, participants are encouraged to think aloud. The coach should not merely be a provider of answers but a challenger of common thinking, provoking participants to reflect. When participants verbalize their thoughts, a change in thinking becomes possible.
2. Instead of pouring in new knowledge, concrete actions are needed. This includes joint experiments, practicing tools, and various simulations.
3. Learning requires space for reflection. Generally, without reflection, there is no learning or development.
4. An insight in thinking is not enough to change the actions of individuals, teams, or organizations. Commitment to concrete development actions or experiments is needed—this is referred to as implementation capability. An implementation-capable individual carries out agreed actions, even if they are not motivating. Based on our experience, social pressure can effectively support this. When discussing experiments with colleagues, commitment increases.
5. Regular, appreciative evaluation of actions and experiments during training ensures that changes occur in the desired direction.
6. To strengthen the impact, it is beneficial to use conscious positive reinforcement by emphasizing successes, applying technological solutions, and employing systemic thinking. We offer the “Coaching Skills” online training for self-directed learning, which we will discuss further below.

A New Effective Way to Support Change in Leadership Culture

Over the past couple of years, we have developed the Coaching-based Skills” online training program around a coaching mindset and approach, significantly increasing the motivation of supervisors and deepening the impact of our coaching.

The Coaching-based Skills program encompasses six thematic areas, featuring nearly 40 separate content modules related to the coaching approach. Each module includes videos, podcasts, reflection tasks, articles, assessments, and, above all, guided applications for daily use.

The Coaching-based Skills online training is designed for anyone working in the professional world. It is not aimed exclusively at supervisors but is suitable for every expert or team member who collaborates as an expert or project leader in the organization.

The Coaching-based Skills program is an online coaching framework that also engages team members in a shared learning process. Traditionally, only supervisors have received training, but it is important to involve team members in the common learning journey. Below is an illustration showing two scenarios: in Scenario A, the traditional model, and in Scenario B, the coaching framework that includes team members as well.

Illustration: Impact is increased when team members are also included as trainees.

In Scenario A, the supervisor applies what they have learned in their own team (with team members represented as green squares).

• The challenge is that they must carry out the change alone.
• Team members behave as before and wonder about the supervisor’s changed actions, which stem from recent training, but they may not be aware of it.
• Determined, aware, and courageous supervisors can instigate change in the entire team culture. The team’s interaction system begins to gradually change.
• However, many supervisors give up and revert to familiar and safe methods. It becomes too challenging “in this situation.” Change does not occur.

In Scenario B, however, the supervisor is not alone in implementing the change.

• When supervisors participate in joint training, each team member works on their thinking and actions using the Coaching Skills learning platform.
• Each team member familiarizes themselves with the agreed theme and engages in self-reflection according to the established timeline.
• The team leader brings the team together and guides discussions about the experiences generated and directs the team to practice the skills required for collaborative work in everyday life.
• The team’s interaction system changes as the supervisor is no longer alone in creating understanding and pushing new thinking into daily practice.
• The supervisor learns to act in a coaching manner, and results begin to emerge as team members gain new ideas and tools for their foundational toolkit.

Impact can be significantly enhanced when supervisors do not have to undertake their change efforts alone. When the entire team is engaged in developing their own and the collective work, results will follow. As supervisors start applying a coaching approach with their teams, the entire team’s operations become coaching-oriented.

In Conclusion

I am convinced that effective coaching leads to better leadership experiences, which, in turn, enhances the quality of employee experiences and subsequently improves customer experiences. Successful coaching focuses on changing behaviors at the operational level. The more diverse the supporting structures and training programs, the more the actions learned and understood in the “classroom” can be integrated into daily life! Time- and location-independent learning supports the overall process.

Feel free to ask for more information, and we will turn words into actions.