The three other ways to be a successful coach:
Until I found out about this, I generally coached everyone the same. Only in about one out of four cases it seemed to work. Thats because there are three other ways of coaching that I simply did not know about.
Ken Blanchard's Situational leadership II is all about the leader (read coach) making a conscious decision on their behaviour to best encourage and support each specific staff member.
How logical does that sound? Its one of those statements that is so obvious, and yet I knew straight away its something I simply have never done.
Blanchard has identified four leadership styles to be associated with four levels of staff development. Ah! I hear you say "I treat different people differently, so I already do this. So there aren't three other ways." But there is a catch… the staff development level is based on the specific task. Ask yourself, do you treat the same staff member differently when in relation to different tasks? This was the key for me.
I am fine with treating people differently, but the same person depending on the task just does not feel right. I can recall in the past being sometimes surprised at how someone who has normally managed to quite independently complete tasks, stumble their way through far easier ones. I was not considering the person and the task combined.
Development Levels
Blanchard has defined four levels.
When we start, we know little and are probably not very good at our new job. As an enthusiastic beginner, we are however always keen, showing high commitment as a response to being given the opportunity of a new position or level of responsibility.
After some time, commitment wanes as either the job is different to expected or maybe harder and progress is slower. This is the second level described as the disillusioned learner.
As time and experience continue, competence builds, but often the commitment lags behind. Still carrying the disillusionment, the staff member is not so sure about their ability.
Finally, the staff member begins to believe in their own abilities and commitment returns to support the high capability and they are then defined as aself-reliant achiever. FOR THAT TASK.
I have to keep reminding myself to assess the individual on the basis of the work being done. The rules are based on Competence and Commitment. A good action now is to think of a task or goal recently delegated to a staff member. For that task, are they highly competent? - Can they do it easily? On the other side, are they committed? Do they believe they can do it?
Now we know their development level for the task or goal, how do we behave?
Leadership Styles
Blanchard uses two scales: Directive and Supportive.
Directive is about the nuts and bolts of a task. Consider the enthusiastic beginner, they have low competence and simply need direction on how to do it. That is being directive.
Supportive style is about targeting the commitment of the staff member. Working on both the staff member's confidence to the task, as well as their motivation, supports them to use the competence they have.
Putting it all together
The enthusiastic beginner is fairly obvious - Directive.
From then on, as both competence and commitment grow, the staff member moves through the three remaining levels. As competence grows the need for directive leadership falls away. As confidence and motivation develop, supportive style coaching can be reduced.
The real art is in both assessing the levels of competence, confidence and motivation and then deciding what level of directive/supportive coaching are needed for the individual. This is where the skill of the leader comes to play.
I had a case where a staff member had never needed much direction at all. She was used to taking the initiative and had started to venture outside her normal comfort zone. While her competence and motivation remained, her confidence was low for this area of work. I was caught off guard and did not support her enough, based on my experience with previous tasks.
I have also found people have different sensitivity to leadership. In the above case, I was lucky. With just a small amount of supportive behaviour she responded and was back on track. In other cases I have not been so lucky. Some people are less sensitive to coaching - ie when they need it, they need a lot. These are the ticking bombs. Again a self reliant achiever moving outside their comfort zone. They simply lacked confidence. However being less sensitive to coaching, I had to work hard to convince them enough to give it a try. These people would often be seen as high maintenance. But if we understand the Blanchard model we can more efficiently direct our leadership efforts to the confidence, motivation or task direction.
I have been trying this approach, and I have not found it easy. I tend to get wrapped up in the definitions of D1 to D4 and have to stop and step back. I feel the value may not be so much in the specific answers but the asking of the questions. It certainly has made a difference and I often find myself not jumping in, but stopping, considering the developmental level of the person and only then acting. I feel this in itself is a good result.
Try it for a month, and at the end step back and try to observe how you have been behaving differently, I think you will be impressed.
Cheers
Steve
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