Check out 10 coaching traits that will help you become a leader your employees wish to follow!

Nowadays, many companies recognise the significance of coaching and its greats potential to influence the business. While some of them decide to hire a coach, others understand the benefits of implementing coaching into the internal part of the company.

We will show you 10 key coaching traits which will help you become a favorite manager in your company.

One of the rules of coaching is that mistakes are welcome because from them we can learn a lot. But if you want to do your job well, you will try to avoid those mistakes to the best of your abilities.

These 10 key coaching skills are something that will help you achieve extraordinary results in working with your team.

1. Be empathic

If you have your own company or leadership position in one, you simply must be emphatic. Otherwise, people will follow you because they must, and not because they want to. Recognising the goals and needs of others is a needed trait for every leader. But empathy isn’t the same as sympathy. Sympathy means identifying yourself with the opinions of people close to us and participating in their emotional state. That means that if a person we are talking to is sad then we will also be sad, even if we don’t have a concrete reason. On the other hand, an empathic person is objective. That person will try to understand the emotions of the other person, but at the same time can see the situation in a realistic manner. Empathy can also be said to be the ability to connect with other people without the prejudices and blindly following our own affinity. Empathy, in a big way, can be said to be respect and fundamental understanding of diversity, Bernard Shaw had said in one occasion:

“Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.”

Using empathy, you won’t be just a manager, but also a friend on which employees can rely on and trust. For that reason, they will want to support you in difficult and important decisions.

2. Be curious

Remember how many questions you asked as a child. A Lot. Don’t you? You have also learned as much. Now, when you are grown up a person all that is required is to keep that curiosity of a child to accomplish business performance. In what way? Ask questions to your employees and be curious about their answers. If you want to be a good manager, it is necessary to be a good coach at the same time, and characteristic of a good coach is active listening, show that you really do care for opinions of your employees, which will, in turn, encourage them to give their own. In a sea of 1000 average ideas, only one genius idea will surface.

3. Recognise the main strengths of your employees

What makes a great manager is the ability to appoint the right people for the right assignment. There is no person who can know every part of the job perfectly, but there something in which that person will shine. A good coach knows what that “something” is. If the employees are successful, they will be satisfied, and satisfaction is the main motivator that drives someone to achieve the best results.

4. Be co-worker, not a supervisor

Employees are faced on a daily bases with challenges of doing their daily work. It highly probable that you have been in a situation that is required to do an unusually big amount of work and because of that working atmosphere in the team is full of tension. What to do then? You must be a coworker to your employees and as a commander stand in front of your soldiers and lead them shouting famous line “Let’s go!”. Great leaders do not control others but represent partners for success. Quality coaching of your employees is best shown in creating a positive working environment where an individual will be able to express his/her own opinion, where their successes will be appreciated, and the challenge is something that calls for action.

5. Ask open questions

In situations where a problem occurs, you need to put yourself up above that problem, for you to solve it with success. The more complex the problem is, the more people will need to be involved in its solution. For that reason, if you truly want to hear good suggestions for solving the problem, ask open questions. If there are limitations, be aware that people will think an answer to the questions precisely within those limitations. One such question is

“In case that a situation isn’t like this, and that everything you think of is possible to achieve, what would you do?

6. Accept feedback

As a manager, you try to do your job the best you can, in the best way possible, but sometimes the hard truth is that you can also make mistakes. If such a situation happens, you need to stay objective and avoid reacting in a turbulent manner. Most important thing is to accept your mistake and honestly ask your employees for constructive feedback. That way you will show them that you really respect and acknowledge their opinion. By admitting and showing your own mistake, you will be able to motivate others to accept their own easier. From a point of coaching, mistakes are even a good thing if we want to become a better version of ourselves.

7. Be a transformational leader

In great measure, the transformational leaders are focused on motivation and expanding their base of followers. A leader cares about the needs and goals of his/her followers and aligns them with the goals of his/her company. In this way, employees will be motivated to do even more from what is expected of them. This approach can help if an organisation needs a radical and significant change.

8. Clearly define the purpose and process of doing an assignment

If your employees do not understand why they are doing something, it is likely that they will have little motivation to it. It doesn’t point just to do the job, but to do it in the right way. For that reason, it is important to define the steps for which we need to go for us to accomplish wanted results. These steps exactly represent the process of accomplishing the job. To simplify, point A is where we are right now, and point B is where we want to be. That process between the A and B is what enables the company to beat its competitors, have in mind that success is the journey, not a destination.

9. Praise and celebrate success

The successful coach knows, applies that knowledge and teaches it effectively. He/she is aware of that fact that even success as well as failure, solely result of our actions. That’s why it is important if your employees, members of your team, clients, do a good job or accomplish goals, to celebrate. People in general love when they are acknowledged for the job they did well. On the other hand, if despite the best efforts the job isn’t done well, or the goals aren’t accomplished, we shouldn’t stay focused on that inconvenient situation, but we should focus on a solution. We need to check what we can do better, what could be more effective and different.

10. Be careful what and how you say things

Communication is the key part in mutual understanding between people. For you to understand your employees and your clients, you need first to carefully listen to what the other person is saying. But only listening is just one half of the communicational equation. It also very important what and in which way you are saying things. There are no two identical persons in the whole world, we are all different in different characteristics. That is the reason for your communicational style to be different depending on the person across you. The key point is for our thoughts to stay the same, while the sentences you can formulate in completely different ways.

We are really hoping that you are already applying these traits with your employees and clients. If that’s not the case, don’t worry, the moment is always right to start. What makes a coach successful and in what way they can achieve extraordinary results in business, discover together with us in training.