Managers are expected to coach their teams, helping them build skills and take problems head-on. But too few of them have the right training to go beyond evaluating performance once a year and helping employees set goals. Employees don’t just need goals; they need someone in their corner.
Manager coaching skills are essential for improving employee performance, keeping employees engaged, and developing your talent pool into a roster of all-stars.
This is happening as organizations move away from yearly performance reviews to continuous coaching and feedback—putting more pressure on managers to build relevant skills.
Key Takeaways
Manager coaching skills are the abilities managers cultivate to better coach employees as they meet challenges and grow from them. “Coaching” here means being able to:
In many organizations, managers evaluate and record employee performance without actually coaching their employees. Managers with strong coaching skills focus on employee growth rather than just naming performance issues.
They focus on problem-solving, identifying and providing the right support at the right time so employees can conquer challenges. They help employees foster accountability, so they can take ownership of their challenges and their solutions. Finally, they help employees improve over time.
In traditional performance reviews, managers assemble a list of the successes and challenges an employee has experienced throughout the year, give them a rating, and send them on their way. There may be a conversation around the goals that employees should set for the year, but it’s not the focus of the review.
In coaching conversations, managers work with employees to identify challenges and goals. Once they’re identified, the two parties collaborate on charting a path towards tackling challenges and meeting goals. It’s about providing support, rather than rating performance.
More and more organizations are moving away from using the annual performance review as the only touchpoint for managers and their teams to discuss performance. Many are shifting towards continuous performance management, a framework that creates opportunities for managers to coach employees throughout the year. Weekly check-ins, 1-on-1 meetings, and employee engagement surveys all become a chance for managers to offer that coaching.
More opportunities for coaching and a greater focus on its importance means managers need strong coaching skills.
Not only are organizations changing the way they handle performance management, but they’re also emphasizing coaching as a way to impact important HR metrics. Metrics like:
Coaching isn’t a single skill. It’s a toolbox that allows managers to better listen to their team, find the right path to help them, and support them in walking it. Here are the most essential tools in that toolbox.
Listening is the best way for managers to know how to best coach their teams. But active listening isn’t just waiting until it’s your turn to speak. You give someone your full attention. You rephrase what they’ve said before you reply, to ensure you’ve understood them properly. You use non-verbal cues to show you’re listening (e.g., eye contact, nodding). You withhold judgment and focus on problem-solving. You ask clarifying questions.
This skill is one of the most important for managers looking to coach employees, since it prevents misunderstandings and creates alignment on goals and struggles.
Asking questions is an important part of listening and coaching, but not just any question will do. Coaching questions are open-ended, helping to guide employees towards solutions rather than just dropping them fully-formed. “Why did you miss this deadline?” isn’t a coaching question. “Do you think this deadline was realistic considering your workload?” is.
Coaching questions shouldn’t shield employees from accountability, but should guide them towards taking ownership of challenges and opportunities. From there, managers can contribute to building a problem-solving culture rather than a punitive one.
Continuous feedback creates ongoing dialogues between managers and employees, but it requires strong coaching skills. With more opportunities for providing feedback, managers need the ability to give constructive feedback in different situations, tailor their feedback according to recent performance conversations, and check in effectively between sessions.
The main goal of manager coaching is to help employees grow. But growth isn’t linear, and it can require completely different kinds of support from one feedback session to another. Sometimes, offering support means giving team members a different perspective on something they’re struggling with.
Sometimes it’s linking them up with learning resources they need to improve their skills. Supporting growth requires its own set of skills and an awareness of what employees need in a specific moment. Performance management software and similar tools can help managers build these skills and find opportunities for supporting employee growth.
Not all managers have the coaching skills they need, especially if your organization has only recently started shifting to a coaching culture. HR has a role to play in modeling the coaching behavior they want to see in managers, and building scaffolding to support managers in building these skills.
HR needs to clearly set out the fundamental coaching skills (active listening, coaching questions, continuous feedback, supporting growth) managers need to learn and support them in learning these skills. That can involve working with managers to evaluate their skills and identify weaknesses, building training sessions to train up relevant skills, and having goals-focused discussions with them.
HR can give managers opportunities to practice their coaching skills through:
In the same way that managers should be offering employees ongoing support to meet their goals and deal with challenges, HR can provide ongoing support through:
Manager enablement is key to building up coaching skills across your organization.
When managers first start building up their coaching skills, they should be looking to avoid the following mistakes.
Offering feedback and asking questions are both important to coaching. But if managers are doing most of the talking, then they’re not being the most effective coaches they could be. Managers need to listen more than they speak, so they can have a clear understanding of what employees are going through and what they need.
Coaching should guide employees towards the solutions to their problems, not just drop advice in their laps. By asking coaching questions, managers can walk alongside employees as they uncover the root causes of performance issues and other challenges. From there, they can work together to find the path forward.
Performance reviews still have their role to play, but not as your only coaching tool. They can be used to evaluate performance, track progress toward goals, and report on growth. But coaching needs to happen throughout the years, through weekly check-ins, alignment sessions, and 1-on-1s.
They say the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and that’s often true in coaching as well. Managers should support employees in their growth throughout their tenure, whether they’re struggling or exceeding expectations.
Coaching skills allow managers to support employees in meeting challenges, pursuing their goals, and building up their skills. But skills alone aren’t enough. You also need the right tools.
15Five is dedicated performance management software that integrates natively with many of the tools your HR team already uses, making it the beating heart of your performance management and coaching efforts. 15Five centralizes efforts around:
15Five gives managers, HR, and employees a single platform to manage coaching needs, grow their skills, and share feedback. It’s the foundation your managers need to coach effectively.
Manager coaching skills allow managers to support employees during their tenure, whether it’s to overcome challenges or pursue opportunities. Through coaching, managers can work with employees to achieve their goals, rather than evaluating their performance without offering support.
Coaching involves working with employees to identify performance issues, help them take accountability, and find the path toward improving them. It builds a collaborative relationship between managers and employees. Evaluating employee performance means reporting on performance and comparing it to an organizational standard without offering that support.
Managers are increasingly responsible for helping employees build skills, meet challenges head on, and take on new opportunities. That requires coaching. As more organizations shift from annual performance reviews to ongoing performance conversations, managers have more opportunities to coach their teams and need the relevant skills.
HR can help managers become better coaches by modeling the approach they want managers to take. Having regular conversations around coaching skills, helping managers identify (and improve on) weaknesses, and providing opportunities to practice coaching skills are all important.
Managers need the following coaching skills:
Employees are at their most engaged when they feel supported in taking on problems and pursuing new opportunities. Managers are uniquely placed to help them achieve this. Coaching skills like active listening and coaching questions allow managers to align with their teams, figuring out what they need and how to best help them. Continuous feedback and supporting growth are the concrete steps managers take to help their teams reach new heights and effectively sail through troubled waters.
Want to see how a dedicated performance management platform can help managers become better coaches? Book a 15Five demo.