When discussing the role of a business coach, there is one thing that must be cleared up immediately. Your team is composed of all people depending on you for direction. Obviously the higher you are in the organisation, the deeper and wider your team will be.

What this means is a business coach who is a CEO has the entire organisation counting on him or her for direction. The manager of a sales call centre will coach the staff working on the telephones who contact customers. A project team leader is a coach for team members. Even a lone business employee, who has no one answering to him or her, must successfully coach personal performance in a way that leads to successful production on the job.

What many organisational people forget is that they must also be their own coach and not rely only on those to whom they report for direction. It is the equivalent of a football team. The coach provides direction and feedback but it is the team members who play the game and must make on-the-spot decisions leading the team to victory or loss.

Coaching and Personal Performance

A leader’s effectiveness is directly tied to personal performance of course. But does this mean that a person only has to worry about their own specific actions and not the performance of others? Absolutely not! Personal performance actually encompasses much more when you are a manager or team leader. It refers to the ability of a leader to successfully manage teams and team members in a way that leads to a positive work environment focused on fulfilling the company vision effectively and efficiently.

That may seem like a mouthful, but personal performance is a core or basic issue that determines a leader’s ability to successfully take control. Some leaders are born to lead, but most need personal coaching and must be taught how to effectively coach others to success also.

Coaching is a concept that has become a trendy idea, but don’t think it lacks value just because it seems at times to be a new age approach to business. Being a coach is a role that all business leaders assume whether they realise it or not. It is even buried in the manager’s job description as "must have ability to lead others."

Lead them where? Lead them to personal success on the job. Coaching goes full circle in a sense. A leader develops personal management skills and abilities and then coaches others to develop their skills and abilities too. What then occurs in the most successful companies is people with proven and developed leadership abilities are then cultivated to be the new managers. The new managers then concentrate on improving personal management skills and abilities and so it goes on and on.

The Interrogator

To be a good coach, you must be willing to ask a lot of questions of yourself and others. The questions asked are designed to help you explore your personal skills and how you convert them into success. They include the following.

• What are the time management issues?

• What will the company gain or lose based on personal performance of team leaders and their team members?

• Which seemingly unsolvable problems can be solved with new attitudes and approaches?

• Is work organised in ways that enables goals to be met or are there barriers in place limiting efficiency and effectiveness?

• Is work prioritised appropriately?

• How can particular personality traits be matched to particular positions to maximise benefits to employees and company?

• Can time management concepts be instituted to improve productivity and probability of job or project success?

Being a coach to yourself means recognizing the need for training that can enhance personal skills. Being a coach to others means using that training to help others develop their personal skills on the job. Using a business training expert is highly recommended because a qualified trainer can see through the self-imposed barriers organisations unintentionally build that slow down or prevent success.

Being a coach means being an interrogator who asks all the right questions over and over again.