Actionable Coaching Framework to Level up Your Leadership
The best leaders are exceptional coaches
(^^ Dall-e seems to be improving the text in images)
You can be a better leader today by developing a coaching mindset. Don’t just take my word for it. Here are some statistics:
Over 70% of individuals who receive coaching benefit from improved work performance, relationships, and more effective communication skills. Source: Institute of Coaching
It's estimated that 40% of Fortune 500 CEOs have coaches. Source: Brain Magazine
As far as I can tell, 100% of professional athletes have coaches.
Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle wrote an entire book on the coaching of Bill Campell and credited much of the success of today’s top companies to his coaching.
But you have likely seen that most leaders are terrible coaches. They focus more on status updates, accountability, and yelling, “Try harder!” or “Do more!” While (some) of those things are not bad, leveling up your ability to coach your team will make you indispensable to your company. Your team will rave about your leadership, and in the end, you and your team will achieve even better results for your customers.
There are many ways to think about coaching. I could write hundreds of posts on the subject, but let's keep things simple and actionable. Here is how you can use a coaching framework called FUEL to improve your leadership immediately.
FUEL
The acronym FUEL stands for
Frame the conversation: Set goals and a desired outcome for the conversation.
Understand the current state: Ask questions to help develop awareness and insight into the current situation.
Explore the desired state: Discuss what success would look like. How many different ways are available to achieve the result?
Lay out a plan for success: Create a step-by-step plan to reach the desired result, including deadlines and a system for accountability.
Frameworks are powerful, but when applied poorly, they are useless. Let me give you some tips on completing each step.
Actionable Principles
The most important principle is to ask open-ended questions. Most of your talking should be questions. Allow your team to work through the details, ideas, and solutions. Questions are beneficial when understanding the situation. Don’t make assumptions. Instead, ask questions to help move your understanding forward. Some questions that I love to ask are:
“What is the real challenge here for you?” This question immediately gets your team focused on the actual problem and can keep the rest of the conversation focused.
“What do you want?” Boom! This simple but direct question helps you understand the desired state.
“How can I help?” As you lay out the plan for success, have your team help you know where you can help. You might be surprised by where and how they see you being impactful.
Note: I learned these from a great book called The Coaching Habit.
Armed with a solid understanding of the problem and current state, explore the desired state by widening your perspective. Significant evidence shows that limiting your choices to only two leads to poor decision-making. Aim for 3-5 potentially viable options. Don't just put fake possibilities on the table. If you struggle to widen your perspective, ask yourself what you would do if your current favorite idea weren’t an option. Or, if you hypothetically moved forward with your top idea and it failed, why did it fail? What can you learn from that imaginary failure to help you consider other options?
With options in hand, now it’s time to make a plan. (Oh! It's an entirely accidental rhyme. Nice!) The last step is where you lay out how you will bring your desired state to life. Spend most of your time focusing on the immediate next steps. It’s okay if steps further down the line are a bit fuzzier. You can make them more transparent as you achieve the first steps. Accountability systems will enable you to update your plans and measure progress toward your goal.
Great accountability systems have the following components:
They have a known, recurring check-in
A pre-defined agenda that stays mostly consistent
Clear expectations on next steps with timelines
Reflection and ownership of progress
The ability to update the plan based on new information
Be Flexible and Adapt
Don’t forget to adapt this framework to the situation at hand. For example, you can work through these steps async. Long meetings are not necessary every time you want to coach someone. Instead, when you see an opportunity, pull up this framework. Shoot them a message and say, “Hey- I see you are working towards this desired outcome but seem to be struggling. Do I understand the outcome correctly?” As they respond, leverage the framework. Help them understand the current state with great questions. Explore their desired state by considering multiple options, and finally lay out a plan with clear, immediate steps.
Your conversation might be a few minutes of back and forth on Slack for smaller items, but trust me, your team will notice. They will see you helping them succeed and providing tangible coaching to overcome challenges. Do this consistently, and you’ll be amazed by how much your team grows and appreciates your leadership. Instead of someone who only holds them accountable, they will see you as a partner in solving their challenges.
An added benefit is less stress for you! It can be overwhelming to jump in and solve everyone’s problems. That’s a sure recipe for burnout. When you approach challenges with a coaching mindset, you can instead focus on helping the person solve their problems and setting up systems to help them succeed. Not only is this less stressful, but it is also way more rewarding!
My final advice is to adapt this based on the situation and the person's expertise. When someone is new to a problem, it is necessary to be more deeply involved. With your experience, help them work through the situation and find solutions. If your team has experience, occasionally well-placed questions can help them overcome challenges and keep moving forward.
A coaching mindset will help you level up your leadership. Great coaching will help your teams achieve more and do it in a way that improves their abilities. If you can do that, you'll be on your way to being quite the leader.
If you found at least one thing helpful in this article, please let me know by hitting the ❤️ below. This will help me know what helps you the most! Do you have any ideas for my next post or follow-up questions? Please leave me a comment. I will make sure to respond to each one.