6 Core Principles for Leadership Coaches

You might be familiar with leadership training models. Sometimes, receiving leadership advice from an external perspective can be effective. Leadership training programs can bring many benefits. However, do you fully understand the core principles for effective leadership training? Let’s explore in the following article.

6 Core Principles for Leadership Coaches

Whether you are an external executive coach or an internal coach working within an organization, you need to understand and apply the following important principles.

Firstly, create a safe and supportive yet challenging environment. Sometimes, challenges are needed in work. However, without enough support, challenges can damage confidence and erode morale. Provide safety and support to ensure that employees feel heard and valued. This helps build trust, encourages honesty, integrity, and makes participants feel comfortable. It all depends on you, so create an environment where people can derive value from embracing risks. Therefore, maintain an accepting attitude, avoid judgment, and let interviewees know you’re on their side, even when you’re assessing their knowledge and skills.

Strive to accommodate the participant’s agenda. Remember, this coaching program isn’t about you, so let participants decide their goals, even how to improve. It’s indeed ideal if your coaching program aligns with organizational goals, but don’t prioritize personal needs during the coaching process. You need to understand others and empower them to retain a cooperative relationship you’re trying to build.

Create conditions and collaboration. A skilled coach doesn’t provide direct answers or act as an expert but lets participants think freely and come up with solutions for themselves. Organize coaching conversations focusing on participants’ needs, avoid sharing your own life stories, and impractical theories. While you can propose options to address issues, the final choice will depend on the participant – and you serve as a support and collaborator.

Support self-awareness. The purpose of coaching is for participants to learn how to recognize their strengths and weaknesses – a prerequisite skill for any effective leader. Therefore, your actions and words as a coach will impact participants. Share self-awareness methods with participants and help them recognize its importance.

Promote experiential learning. Help individuals become more open and share their own past experiences. Most people learn, develop, and change through experiences. As a coach, assist participants in comfortably discussing past events, analyzing both positives and negatives. Encourage learning from experiences and using them for development. Participants will continue to improve in the long run even after the lessons end.

Finally, model what you coach. The last of the 6 core coaching principles is the hardest to implement as it means applying leadership lessons you’re trying to convey into real life.

And remember, if you feel you lack the ability to coach on a specific issue, introduce someone with more experience – hopefully, somehow, there will be someone practicing the 6 core leadership coaching principles even better than you.

You need an expert in this field, so please contact Metta via email at phung.metta@metta.com.vn for the best consultation. We provide comprehensive human resources solutions along with top experts.

Source: https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/the-six-principles-of-leadership-coaching/