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The collaborative and engaging style of a "Coach" enables leaders to be a "manager-coach". This approach focuses on developing employees in order to achieve business results rather than managing their every move. The mindset of the manager-coach is to create an environment that fosters learning, independent thinking and opportunities to contribute. The manager-coach doesn't want to be seen as a solution provider. Rather, they want to be seen as a facilitator, paving the way for the employee to achieve their results. Manager-Coaches are a role model for others. They are excellent listeners and communicators, providing perspective and encouragement while also setting high standards and expectations.

How effective is your approach to coaching? We invite you take a coaching evaluation to see where you stand in comparison to outstanding business coaches. It will measure the how strongly you prefer to behave collaboratively or dictatorially, how prone you are to giving advice or enabling other people to discover answers for themselves, and how apt you are to exert your expertise or treat everyone as equals. While certainly the best coaches adjust their style to the particular person and situation at hand, we have found that there are ideal ranges on the scores for all six of these dimensions.

This was a thought provoking survey,that helped confirm an area of my own leadership that I wish to evolve - wanting to solve everyone's problems for them rather than engaging them in helping to find solutions.

One of the most important, leadership skills to develop in managers is the ability to coach effectively-including how to connect with employees and get the best out of them on an ongoing basis. From my own experience, here are three employee performance management best practices I've found effective in turning frontline managers into first-rate coaches.

Confirmation that companies are on the right track in demanding frequent coaching sessions comes from Google's "Project Oxygen," the company's rigorous, data-based analysis of what makes great managers. Technical expertise made a difference, but only a small one. The single most important differentiator between good and great managers? "Be a good coach."

Coaching is conversation. It's about asking questions, listening and being thoughtful about your responses with the goal of learning and development for the person or team being coached. Here, a few things all managers should know about coaching.

As a manager, you provide some level of coaching to all your direct reports, helping some attain higher levels of professional achievement, and helping others improve their performance to fulfill their current roles. But while every manager should have the capability to coach, you also need to have the ability to discern when coaching isn't working.

No matter how successful a coaching session feels while it's underway, if it doesn't lead to change after it's over, it hasn't been effective. Unfortunately, too many managers don't adequately follow through and thereby squander the important time they've invested in coaching. You can make the process more effective by adopting these practices after every session.

Coaching is about connecting with people, inspiring them to do their best, and helping them to grow. It's also about challenging people to come up with the answers they require on their own. Coaching is far from an exact science, and all leaders have to develop their own style, but we can break down the process into practices that any manager will need to explore and understand. Here are the three most important:

In the corporate milieu, we can leverage these findings to encourage strong showings among our employees. Our experience suggests that as a manager/coach, you can help your employees live up to their promise by adapting the five Olympic coaching principles in the following ways:

Through coaching - a.k.a. collaborative development discussions - with their managers, direct reports can learn and grow in key ways. Coaching can help people gain greater self-awareness, increase their autonomy, reinforce strengths and skills, and take more responsibility for their own development and career path. Direct reports will also be more likely to agree with and implement their individual development plans and be more engaged in their work.

"Starting today, you can be significantly more effective as a manager - and enjoy your job more - by engaging in regular coaching conversations with your team members. As you resolve to support their ongoing learning and development, here are five key tips to get you started."

But today, tighter budgets, flatter organizations, a heavy workload, and too many direct reports often leave managers without the time - and sometimes without the skills - to shoulder the responsibility of being coach and mentor. And yet, this function remains critical to the long-term health and productivity of the organization.

When coaching such clients, I try to help them stay calm and grounded by focusing on making one immediate and powerful change: ask open-ended questions and avoid making directive statements. This strategy is simple, straightforward, and easy to remember. It's also measurable quantitatively. The manager (or someone observing the manager) can count how many times he or she asked open-ended questions and made directive statements during a meeting with direct reports. The ratio of the former to the latter should be high, often in the neighborhood of 10 to 1 as judged by my experience with clients who went on to succeed in management roles.

The best way to empower employees is not to manage them. Coach them to success. This is a process of developing their skills and providing them specific feedback to meet high standards. Employees want to be on the same team with their bosses.

As a manager, you may be tempted to overlook employee conflicts when they occur in the workplace, hoping they go away on their own. But ignoring employee problems does not make them disappear-In fact, over time, unresolved conflicts often escalate into negative workplace environments that lower morale, increase turnover, and harm productivity.  What should you do about this? How can you coach your employees through conflict? Here are five tips to keep in mind.

Another great coaching skill for managers - silence. It's not as simple as it sounds!

"People come to you mindlessly and ask questions, you answer them thinking you are helping, they leave your office without taking ownership of the results - you told me to do this - they learn nothing and they feel you want them to come to you with all questions, because you don't trust them to do the right thing. It is a vicious cycle. Simply, don't answer any more questions."

Good Coaching advice