Mastering Coaching Dynamics for Transformation

Curious about how to transform resistance into self-awareness and growth in leadership coaching? This episode promises to equip you with the knowledge and strategies to navigate complex coaching dynamics successfully. Join us as we explore the art and science of leadership coaching, sharing insights from over three decades of experience. We unpack the essential traits of an impactful leadership coach and stress the importance of continual growth and flexibility in coaching frameworks. By embracing the Progress Coaching model QALMS—Questions, Activities, Learning Projects, Motivator, and Supplemental coaching—we illustrate how these components drive change and foster accountability. 

Discover practical examples that showcase the power of individual motivators in guiding resistant team members toward personal development. Learn how effective coaching requires a deep understanding of a coaching model and the ability to adapt it to diverse personalities and situations. Through engaging discussions, we emphasize the necessity of mastering the art of coaching application. Whether leading a single individual or a large team, this episode provides invaluable insights into navigating the multifaceted world of leadership coaching and cultivating a lasting impact on those you guide.

Welcome to Coaching Conversations

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

You know, for 30 years we've been teaching people how to coach and often when I'm in front of clients, people will say geez, how did you come up with that solution so quickly? You know I go back to a couple fundamental attributes of being a great leadership coach. Now, I'm not self-anointing myself a great leadership coach because I work with a coach, I work with an EQ coach, I work with a mentor. We're always improving as coaches. Hopefully, we're always improving as leadership coaches. And I think about the concept of coaching application. What we have to realize is coaching application is a piece of clay. See, often I'll get questions like well, what do you do when somebody is really resistant and you try to give them feedback and they push back and what they ask for is the solution. There isn't a solution, there's a framework, there's a model, because you don't control the person's reaction. So a lot of times we look for that fix, that solution, that what's the strategy that will be guaranteed to work. It doesn't work like that. Coaching application is understanding a coaching framework. It's understanding the choices that you have. That can be different conversation pieces, different questions, different thoughts, different statements, different ways to deliver mentoring, thoughts, perspectives. Then you have to think about the person's reaction. So if you have someone who's highly resistant versus someone who's really open, your approach is going to be different. Now you might have somebody who's highly open having a bad day. They might inadvertently demonstrate some resistance.

Speaker 1: 2:15

Coaching application is about applying coaching principles to situations but understanding that one solution is not, and usually is not, foolproof every single time. So coaching application is taking our understanding, our understanding of the model of coaching, whatever you've been taught. So let me share this with you. We teach something here at Progress Coaching called QALMS. That is our coaching model Q-A-L-M-S Questions drive self-awareness. Activities drive change, learning projects, build accountability. M the motivator, is the career coaching. What's in it for them? We call it the WIFT and then S is supplemental coaching.

Speaker 1: 3:06

Let me give you an example Recently, which is a really fundamental example, by the way when I think about somebody who's resistant and then you talk to them and say, well, where do you want to take your career? And they say, well, I want to be a first-time manager. Now, when I say that you want to be a first-time manager and I think about someone, that's a point of leverage, not that you're manipulating or leveraging the person, yet that's a specific leverage point you can bring into the conversation. So if I sit down with Bob and say you know, bob, I think about you engaging with your teams openly and thoughtfully and professionally, now what I'm doing is I'm giving a picture of the opposite behavior he's demonstrating, which is resistant and maybe opinionated, and then I bring in the motivator so I say, well, bob, you know, I think about you, you know really engaging with your teammates, being proactive, thoughtful, and how that might help you become that first-time manager that you brought up. What's going through your mind and how do you think you could successfully do that? What did I just demonstrate? I led with thoughts. I brought in his motivator, I used questions that build self-awareness and I use a question format called a self-actualized question, such as what are you going to do to successfully?

Speaker 1: 4:27

So the key is, the key to this is to really understand that we have to understand a model so we can understand our choices to provide coaching application. So when I get in front of a group of 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 people and people are throwing questions at me, I love it and people will, I'll say it, hopefully humbly that people say, oh, wow, that's really impressive. All I'm doing. All I'm doing is I'm going through a coaching application process. So when somebody says, well, I'm coaching a guy who's really resistant like Bob, our hypothetical employee and says I don't have a lot of time, I'll go to supplemental coaching, which are prescriptive coaching strategies that don't take a lot of time.

Speaker 1: 5:17

So first, understand a coaching model. Number two practice. Practice. Practice it's not memory, it's practice of application. You know we call it thinking on a dime. One of the things I love to do more than anything in the world, one of the things I absolutely love, is to be in front of a group of people and be put on the spot, not to show off but to demonstrate. All I'm doing is grabbing components, attributes from my coaching model that I teach. That's it. Make sure you have a model. Number two make sure you practice. And then, number three practice. Actually start to use this when you're coaching your people.