How are leaders and managers different? Why is coaching important in leadership?
The leadership model that exemplifies traits of trust and integrity isn’t that of the high-powered corporate executive. It’s that of the coach who’s focused on team success.
Find out more about why you should embrace your inner coach to lead a business.
Lead Like a Coach
According to Marty Cagan and Chris Jones, coaching is the most important leadership skill. But why is coaching important in leadership and how can you be one? To coach your team toward success, you can’t just focus on making sure they finish tasks—you have to inspire them as a team and as individuals, create development plans for each member, and maintain a constant dialogue as everyone you coach moves forward in their careers.
(Shortform note: In writing about leadership, Cagan and Jones assume your team members’ basic obedience as a given, but in Trillion Dollar Coach, Bill Campbell argues that your team won’t automatically follow your lead just because you’re their manager—you have to earn their respect in much the same way that sports coaches earn their players’ trust over time. Your authority needs to surface naturally, especially with highly talented employees. Campbell agrees with Cagan and Jones that to build your credibility, you have to nurture your team members’ growth and success, rather than focus on profits or budgets. Research has shown that teams managed by respected leaders have less turnover and better performance.)
What Is a Coach?
Cagan and Jones are careful to distinguish between leadership and management. Leaders, like coaches, drive the team toward a goal, while managers merely oversee task performance. As coaches, leaders set their team’s overall direction by articulating a vision and providing guidance. As such, leading is more than supervising—it calls for inspiring your team. Whereas traditional managers stifle creativity and individual growth through management-by-directive, a true product leader motivates team members by posing challenges rather than assigning tasks. This encourages team members to think creatively and stretch their abilities as they achieve their goals.
(Shortform note: Cagan and Jones imply that providing goals for your team as a whole will equally motivate all of its members, but according to McClelland’s Theory of Needs, individuals are driven by different core desires, namely their needs for achievement, affiliation, or power. However, carefully designed team goals can cater to each of these diverse motivations. Achievement-driven members find satisfaction by showcasing their skills in challenging tasks, while affiliation-driven members value the chance to bond with teammates working towards a shared objective, and power-driven members thrive in leadership roles. Managers must understand each member’s primary driver and adjust their responsibilities accordingly.)
Cagan and Jones say that as a product leader, your primary job is to develop your people. Think of your team as your actual product and spend most of your time and energy coaching them. You should measure your performance by your team’s success and growth, not just by the products they create. Since trust is crucial for effective coaching, you should consistently demonstrate genuine commitment to each team member’s progress and development with the goal of helping the people on your team think and act like product leaders themselves.
(Shortform note: Cagan and Jones tout coaching as the optimal leadership style, but it’s not the only one and may not be ideal for every leader. Choosing the best leadership style depends on understanding your strengths and the needs of your team. Is your strength inspiring others as a transformational leader, administering tasks as a delegative leader, mentoring others as an authoritative leader, or balancing rewards and procedures as a transactional leader? Alternatively, are you a naturally inclusive participative leader, or do you prioritize others’ needs as a servant leader? Consider your team’s dynamics and remember that leaders don’t always stick to one style, but adapt based on changing circumstances.)
Create Personalized Development Plans
Cagan and Jones’s first recommendation for effectively coaching individual team members is to create a tailored development plan for each person on your team by performing a skills assessment to determine their strengths and weaknesses. Don’t try to force team members to improve in too many areas at once—for each person, keep the focus on strengthening the three areas most in need of growth. Your aim should be to help everyone grow in their expertise while also encouraging them to understand how the whole business works. Everyone should be trained on skills and techniques related to their current tasks, but you should also impress upon them the value of learning new skills if needed.
(Shortform note: The authors’ advice to help your team develop is becoming more important as artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes the roles that many workers perform. Many team members may fear for their jobs, but as a coach, you can help persuade them that “soft” human skills, such as emotional intelligence, will be even more important in the shifting technological landscape. Product leaders should also urge workers to enhance their AI skills by embracing practical, hands-on experience, either through online courses or structured training.)
Request a Written Narrative
Another technique the authors recommend is to ask for written narratives in which team members describe the problems they’re solving, along with why the issues they’re working on are important to the company’s customers and the business as a whole. Creating a written narrative gets workers to think through their ideas while explaining exactly how their solutions to problems meet the customers’ needs. In this way, written narratives help team members develop a customer-focused mindset while addressing any concerns they may have before problems become issues that affect other stakeholders.
(Shortform note: One company that’s used this technique with good results is the online retail giant Amazon. In Working Backwards, Colin Bryar and Bill Carr explain that when an Amazon employee wants to propose a course of action, they’re expected to write a detailed argument rather than present a slideshow, as in most businesses. Rather than only sharing these with managers, as in the process Cagan and Jones describe, Amazon employees share their arguments with all of their colleagues, who use the start of each meeting to silently read through new proposals. This lets team members explain complex concepts while affording their colleagues the chance to properly engage with their ideas.)
