HOW TO BECOME A BETTER BOSS

Want to become a better boss? Learn to be a better coach.

A coaching leadership style has been shown to be an enabler for high performance culture, which is why so many leaders and companies ask me how to introduce a coaching approach to their teams.

The first thing to understand is that coaching is a way of being. It’s not a technique, it’s how we show up and how we approach challenges and opportunities in all aspects of our lives.

Coaching is emotional intelligence – our ability to be self-aware, connect with others, regulate our emotions, recognize the emotions in others and motivate them.

Coaching is a muscle that can be developed over time with intention, focus and energy. It’s not a destination to be reached, but rather a process of continuous evolution and exploration.

Becoming a better coach, and ultimately a better boss, involves transforming from the inside out.

It’s not necessarily an easy approach to incorporate, though there are a few simple skills that you can start to develop and grow that will get you well on your way to becoming a better boss – many of which may challenge your idea of a leader.

Here are 5 ways to become a better boss using coaching principles.

1. Listen More & Tell Less

Listening is a superpower for leaders. A boss that listens deeply and attentively to their team fosters trust, connection and appreciation. In coaching, we make a distinction between three levels of listening.

Level 1 listening involves listening with ourselves at the centre. This is when we are listening and relating what we are hearing to our own life. We listen to determine whether we agree or not with the other person and we reply with our own thoughts and experiences.

Level 2 listening occurs when we are intently focused on the other person. We are fully present in the conversation and listening acutely to what the person is saying. This is an intense and focused attention with no distractions. At this level we’ve taken ourselves out of the equation and are fully focused on the other person.

Level 3 listening is the level that a coach listens to a client. This is a soft wider focus on the other person. We listen to what they are saying, to what is going unsaid, to body language and energy. “It’s like you can hear sound effects in their mind – the clink of a penny dropping, the thud as they hit a wall. You can feel them straining to avoid something or pulling towards something – and you have a sense of what that might be.” -Coaches Training Institute

Most people listen at Level 1. We listen to determine whether we agree, our minds become distracted by what we will say next and our own experience with the topic being discussed.

To become a better boss, start by practicing Level 2 listening. Place your attention entirely on the other person. Listen attentively to what they are saying and refocus your attention on them again whenever you notice that your mind has wandered.

Once you get good at level 2 listening, up-level your skills by practicing level 3 listening - listen to what is being said and not being said, notice body language, energy levels, tone and speed of voice and get curious about all of it.

Have your employees feel heard and help them uncover new insights by reflecting back what you see and hear with no judgement.

2. Stay Humble & Ask More Questions

As leaders, we sometimes act as if our role is to tell, direct and guide others. In fact, a necessary reframe to become a better boss is to think of ourselves as facilitators of growth and well-being.

According to David Ulrich, a professor of business and author of 30+ books, the ability to make progress in a particular area is determined by two main factors, 1) the quality of the idea and 2) our commitment to moving it forward. As leaders, when we direct others by imposing our own ideas, we may indeed offer an exceptional idea, however if we also reduce the other person’s commitment to moving the idea forward, we are no further ahead. This is an important concept to consider as we help our teams solve issues, address concerns and make ongoing positive progress.

Leadership is not about being intellectually superior, authoritative and powerful. Competence is necessary, but it is simply the cost of entry. Being a great boss is about your ability to foster collaborative relationships and grow the leaders around you. We do this by staying humble, asking questions and helping others find their own great ideas.

Here are a few open-ended questions to start practicing:

· What’s most important right now?

· What do you want?

· How do you define success?

· How can I help?

· What else?

3. Lean into Curiosity

When I’m coaching a leader about how to handle a difficult situation with an employee, colleague or superior, I often reflect back the assumptions I hear them make. As humans, we are extremely good at coming up with explanations for what is happening. The only issue is that the explanations and meanings we come up with for other people’s behaviours are entirely made-up stories we’ve ourselves created. (This is true of the meaning we make for our own actions, but this is fodder for another time.)

When we don’t acknowledge that these assumptions are our own creations and not reflective of reality or fact, we react from a misconstrued reality and miss an opportunity to get curious, learn and connect.

Leaning into curiosity requires us to bring awareness to our own assumptions and to clearly distinguish between facts, and the stories we attach to make meaning of what is happening.

To practice this, get into the habit of separating facts from story by listing on a piece of paper facts on one side (facts are irrefutable!) and story on the other (story is anything that someone else can have a different opinion on). Then, get curious. When you look at the facts, devoid of any story, what questions do you have? Who might offer some clarity? What might be your next step?

4. Reinforce Strengths

Great bosses focus their team on their strengths and assemble a team whose strengths are complimentary. This is likely one of the most critical skills that a boss can bring to their team – to help each member identify their personal strengths and to apply these strengths consciously and intentionally to their work. When your employees forget what their strengths are, it’s also your job to remind them.

As Marcus Buckingham says, “focusing on strengths is the surest way to greater job satisfaction, team performance and organizational excellence. You will excel only by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses.”

5. Stop Solving

As alluring as it might be to believe that your value as a leader is correlated with your ability to be a master problem solver, the best bosses realize that actually their job is not to come up with solutions. In fact, great bosses prioritize helping employees define their challenges more clearly so that they can take meaningful action toward progress.

Rather than solving problems, great bosses help to clearly define the root of challenges, uncover what is the end goal and assist brainstorming actions forward.

As Michael Bungay Stainer describes in his book, The Advice Trap, “If you can get really good at figuring out what the real challenge is, if you can redefine your role not as the person who comes up with answers, but the person who makes sure we’re working on the real thing, your value goes up immensely in your organization because you’re that person that goes, I get us to the heat of what really needs to be solved.” And that’s valued by everyone you lead.”

For a highly actionable, practical and enjoyable book on bringing a coaching approach to your leadership, pick up one of Michael Bungay Stainer’s books, The Coaching Habit or The Advice Trap.

Best,

Lisa

Lisa is an Executive Coach, Founder & CEO of LDR Leadership Labs. For more from Lisa, join the LDR Leadership Community on LinkedIn at: www.linkedin.com/company/ldrleadershiplabs and sign up for the LDR Insiders Newsletter here.