What is Coaching Leadership? Definition and Characteristics [Explained]

What is Coaching Leadership?

Coaching leadership is a leadership style in which leaders lead employees through instruction and guidelines about how to meet special organizational challenges. Coaching leaders identify the weaknesses of their followers in terms of their behavior and skills and suggest how they might correct their skills and behavior.

In addition to outlining the duties and obligations of their followers, coaching leaders enlist their advice and contribution in order to raise output levels. They engage in two-way conversations and promote the exchange of ideas.

Coaching leaders become more successful, particularly in team management with newly hired personnel. There will be immediate feedback on performance as leaders continuously monitor and oversee the performance level of their subordinates, and they may also start the quick fix for better results. The coaching leadership style is most effective when followers are more responsible and agreeable.

The coaching leaders pinpoint the areas where their followers are weak and then instruct, encourage, and inspire them to strengthen those areas. The degree of followers’ pleasure is kept high, which keeps them engaged, as a result of ongoing efforts for instruction, direction, and encouragement. Each follower is fully aware of their responsibilities and the company’s overall strategy thanks to coaching leadership, which fosters a healthy work environment.

Coaching leaders are used to linking leadership with personal objectives and professional aspirations. They assist followers in strengthening their aptitude, dedication, and professional success. Followers create a long-term strategy to accomplish long-term objectives with constant support, inspiration, and direction. While giving their subordinates plenty of feedback on their performance, coaching leaders also give them tasks and authority.

For increased effectiveness, followers working under coaching leaders must be receptive to helping the leaders. This leadership style may be ineffective in case employees are extremely resistant to change, or are not interested in learning new things, the manager will struggle if they choose this style. At the same time, leaders should have technical expertise in which area the person guides their followers.

When working with coaching leaders, followers must be open to assisting them in order to be more effective. The manager will struggle if they pick this leadership style if their team members are very resistant to change or show no desire to learn new things. While guiding their followers, leaders should possess technical knowledge in that field.

Related: Transformational Leadership

Characteristics of Effective Coaching Leaders

The following are the common characteristics effective coaching leaders are filled with.

• Coaching leaders possess optimal empathy or responsiveness for understanding followers’ abilities, interests, and wills from their level.
• They possess good skills for listening to others. They concentrate extra hard on listening to their followers.
• They possess the extra ability to insight into people regarding what they exactly think and estimate their will and intentions.
• These leaders show their level best in diplomatic relations with a soft voice and encouragement to others.
• Coaching leaders have good patience toward people. They perform calmly even though others are performing mistakes. They practice no hostile behavior toward others.
• They always think of serving others to be effective. Their prime concern is the welfare of others.
• They are self-confident and emotionally stable. They attempt to have at least one personal success each week.
• They remain far from the competition with their colleagues, their team members, and others as they set the target for themselves.
• Coaching leaders remain enthusiastic for people. They search for good factors in every person. They identify negative factors, behaviors, and weaknesses, but let them down, and search for and highlight the good things. Based on goodness, they lead the people to their improvement.

Read Next: The 12 Styles of Leadership