The Coaching Manager Tweddle Group

With this shift, there is still a "me" in the picture, but it's not front and center. The "me" involves finding one's own personal motivation, enjoyment and engagement in learning the skills of leadership beyond their individual performance.

"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."

Leaders who want to create initiative, leadership, and decentralized action in their organization have to be ready to give up on the idea that they know the best answers.

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.

What does work is a) helping people find a deep and very personal vision of their own future and b) then helping them see how their current ways of operating might need a bit of work if that future is to be realized. These are the first two steps in Richard Boyatzis' Intentional Change theory - which we've been testing with leaders for years. According to Boyatzis - and backed up by our work with leaders - here's how people really can begin and sustain change on complex abilities linked to emotional intelligence:

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.

ask yourself these three questions on a regular basis: What am I not saying that needs to be said? What am I saying that's not being heard? What's being said that I'm not hearing?