How to Conduct Effective Coaching Skills Training for Managers (And How Not to)
Ross was excitedly waiting for his next promotion.
A larger paycheck, more visibility, and increased decision-making powers. It sounded perfect.
But what also came along was the additional responsibility of the team — a sudden shift from an individual contributor to a manager.
A recent survey showed that at least one in four managers gets no management training.
Ross also did not get any. He thought answering questions from team members meant coaching them. With this limited understanding, he was now a manager of five underperforming team members.
Coaching is a leadership competency, and managers need training for it too.
Today, we bring you a list of 11 coaching skills and a plan for training coaching skills for managers.
Use all of these insights to ensure managers at your organization will not struggle like Ross. 😉
⚠️ Managers can't be great coaches all by themselves
Before looking into the training plan, let's check why you need the training.
NTUC Learning did a study to understand the perception towards coaching among leaders and the challenges to becoming an effective coach.
The shocking finding was that every 9 in 10 respondents faced challenges acquiring coaching skills.
On asking further about their challenges:
- 40% said it was a lack of time to upskill.
- 35% didn't get enough support from the organization for upskilling/training.
- 33% don't have enough confidence in their coaching skills.
🚨 Clearly, managers are looking for help.
🤩 11 Coaching skills of effective managers
Here are all the top 11 skills which can turn a manager into a coach.
1. Building work relationships
The ability to build relationships will help managers form a genuine connection with team members so they open up in coaching conversations.
2. Effective communication
As a coaching competency, effective communication refers to the ability to convey ideas, feedback, and instructions in a clear, understandable, and engaging way.
Effective communication helps managers-as-coaches establish trust, mutual understanding, and productive interactions between the coach and coachee.
3. Active listening
As coaches, managers should listen to team members, understand them and respond based on the input. Active listening builds a deeper connection between the manager and team members.
4. Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand one's emotions and those around them.
This competency allows coaches to respond effectively and empathetically to their coachees' feelings and needs. It involves skills such as:
- active listening;
- empathy;
- self-awareness;
- effective interpersonal communication.
Managers-as-coaches need empathy above everything, where they can put themselves in team members' shoes and understand where they are coming from.
As a result, they can create a supportive and trusting environment, which is crucial for the coachee's self-exploration, growth, and achievement of their goals.
5. Powerful questioning
Questioning skill is a must-have for any manager trying to coach. It can make team members introspect and reflect.
As coaches, managers will ask questions that give team members newer perspectives on a problem.
For example, a powerful question a manager can ask a struggling team member is: How can you approach this problem differently?
6. Goal setting
Goal setting as a coaching competency refers to the manager's ability to guide their coachees in defining clear, achievable, and meaningful objectives. Managers-as-coaches help individuals identify their personal or professional aspirations and translate these into specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals.
This process also involves helping coachees understand the steps required to achieve these goals and helping them formulate strategies or action plans.
Effective goal setting can provide direction, increase motivation, and improve performance.
7. Business storytelling
Business storytelling as a coaching competency refers to the manager's ability to use narratives effectively to communicate ideas, insights, or lessons in a compelling and relatable manner.
This skill can help illustrate complex concepts, present scenarios or case studies, and inspire or motivate coachees.
Storytelling can resonate more deeply with people because it taps into emotions, making the conveyed messages more memorable and impactful.
As such, a coach skilled in business storytelling can facilitate a better understanding, drive engagement, and foster stronger connections with their coachees.
8. Persuasion
Persuasion refers to the ability of a manager to influence or convince their coachees in a way that encourages them to consider new perspectives, take action, or make changes that contribute to their personal or professional growth.
It's not about manipulation or coercion. Instead, it is all about presenting compelling arguments or insights that inspire the coachees to move toward their goals.
9. Facilitating learning and development
Facilitating learning and development refers to a manager's ability to support their coachees in gaining new skills, knowledge, and perspectives.
It involves helping them:
- Identify learning opportunities.
- Navigate learning processes.
- Apply their new learnings to achieve their goals.
10. Ability to give (and receive) feedback
This competency involves a coach's skill in providing constructive, clear, and actionable feedback to their coachees to facilitate growth. It also involves being open to receiving feedback from coachees to improve their coaching practices and promote a two-way communication culture.
Giving constructive feedback and staying open to feedback will make coaching relationships mutually beneficial.
11. Inclusive leadership
As a coaching competency, inclusive leadership refers to a coach's ability to create an environment that respects, values, and taps into the diversity of their coachees.
Inclusive leadership involves understanding and acknowledging different individuals' unique perspectives and experiences and ensuring that everyone feels seen, heard, and supported.
➡️ Learn more about each of these coaching skills with our detailed guide.
➡️ For more leadership competencies, download our leadership competency matrix.
🏋️♂️ 6-Step roadmap to conduct coaching skills for manager training
Now, you have the list of all the 11 skills managers need. Here is the detailed plan for coaching skills for manager training.
1. Onboard managers
Before deep diving into skills, conduct an introductory session to explain:
- What coaching and coaching framework is.
- Why is the need for coaching skills training, and what can managers expect out of training.
- How this training will be helpful to managers in their work and growth.
- Why you selected a specific training format.
- (If applicable) What is your tech setup: Help managers gain digital fluency by giving a walkthrough on all tools and platforms for one-on-one meetings, learning, feedback, and recognition systems.
2. Individual skill training
Roll out bite-sized lessons, individual training, or workshops on all 11 coaching skills.
Recommended courses
💡 You can find all these courses and hundreds more on Zavvy's external learning library. Our learning scientists carefully curated the best learning resources for you.
3. Plan in action
Bring managers together as part of a cohort/group where they practice different coaching situations and apply the skills learned.
Below are a few prompts for the exercise:
- Explaining the vision to a team member of where they are and where they can be
- Setting goals
- Discussing issues with a team member who has been underperforming recently
- Giving critical feedback
After this step, encourage managers to implement the learnings in their coaching conversations with team members.
4. Measure the impact
Next, to confirm that the training on coaching skills is effective, you can assess the impact on the organizations by measuring key performance indicators which matter to you. Common KPIs to measure are:
- Employee engagement
- Average new hire time to productivity
- Job satisfaction
- Retention
- The ratio of internal promotions v/s external hires. This ratio measures how many people working at a company got internal promotions v/s the number of external hires. It is beneficial to measure coaching effectiveness.
5. Make coaching a part of the system
If coaching isn't an out-of-blue expectation from managers, why not tie this competency to appraisals?
In performance reviews, allow team members to give feedback to managers via a 360 feedback system on how helpful their coaching is.
A few sample questions to add to 360 feedback are:
- Do you receive constructive feedback from your manager?
- Does your manager clearly communicate expectations?
- Does your manager create an open and trusting environment at work?
- Do you feel your work is valued?
- Does your manager care about your well-being?
- Do you have a learning action plan for the next three months?
This way, managers will also get action points to work upon.
6. Take feedback
Lastly, don't stop with the first launch. Instead, keep evolving your training program based on feedback. You can collect feedback from managers by conducting pulse surveys.
💡 5 Tips to take your coaching skills training initiatives to the next level
Keep it flexible
Different managers will have different learning styles.
For example, a few prefer in-person training, whereas others prefer online courses.
Coaching needs also change from organization to organization.
A set of processes will get the initial ball rolling, but flexibility will keep it pushing in the long run.
Create a library of resources
Creating a library with additional resources and a reusable template further supports managers in implementing the learning from their training.
For example, Michael Lantry, CEO of Gempool, suggests compiling best practices to help managers be strong coaches.
For example, instead of answering a team member, ask them, 'What have you done so far?'. This approach will get them thinking about their steps and if they missed anything. Another great way is to push back and ask, 'What do you think you should do?'. Again, this encourages the team member to really think about what solutions or approaches might work for their given problem.
Help managers get a coach
Michael Bungay Stanier, a thought leader in the coaching space, says in his book: "You become a great coach by being willing to be coached."
You can help managers get a coach. Coaches support managers in practicing coaching skills and identifying their strengths and potential areas for growth.
Create a coaching culture
Coaching can't exist in a silo, like a team or a department.
Coaching should be a well-defined practice in your organization.
Having a few selected managers do the training is not enough to make coaching part of your employee development strategy.
In the long run, coaching has to be a key aspect of leadership at your organization. And it needs to be practiced from the top down.
Dr. Kyle Elliott, an Executive coach, says, "The C-suite cannot expect managers to be effective coaches if they themselves are not modeling coaching in action."
Offer ongoing support
Jarir Mallah, HR Specialist at Ling App, suggests providing ongoing support for managers after the coaching skills training course has ended. This could include regular check-ins, access to coaching resources and tools, and opportunities to continue learning and growing their skills.
🤝 4 Coaching experts speak on why coaching skills training programs fail
Not onboarding managers
Fiorella Velarde, Executive Coach and Regional Director LATAM at Six Seconds, told us that organizations often make the mistake of not getting buy-in from the managers to be trained before any coaching training.
Managers don't understand the objectives of coaching training and how it is helpful for them in their work.
As a result, managers attend the training for the sake of compliance and do not make the most out of it.
Making the entire experience far from engaging
Chiraz Bensemmane, Founder at CoachTribe, says companies tend to go very broad and theoretical in coaching skills training programs, not giving leeway for more practical or adapted content. This leaves participants with information overload and no clear idea of using the information. It also affects training engagement.
Coaching training is to put theory into practice and use experiential training, role-playing, or cohorts, where managers can practice different situations. It makes the training more engaging and effective.
Having no accountability in place
Another big mistake organizations make in coaching programs is thinking their work gets over after delivering the training.
Andrée Funnell, Professional Coach and Trainer, says three blunders organizations make in planning any coaching skills training programs are:
- No accountability from the manager once the training has been delivered.
- No measurement of practical use in the workplace and feedback from both managers and team members.
- No assessment method to ensure the coaching training has been a success.
Tying coaching back to appraisals is the one way to ensure your coaching training program is not spray and pray. But you develop an end-to-end ecosystem for coaching to work.
Treating coaching as an episodic event
Jonathan Gilbert, Director, Leadership and Management Practices at Learning Tree, says, "The greatest challenge is most organizations look at coaching programs as an episodic event rather than a continuous ebb-and-flow intervention."
Coaching is not a one-time event in response to poor performance or low employee engagement.
- A new line-up of managers gets promoted every year.
- Existing managers move up the ladder to higher roles.
- The challenges managers face change.
- Situations leaders deal with keep changing.
Regular training equips new and existing managers to hone their skills and identify their strengths and weaknesses.
➡️ Create a continuous coaching program with Zavvy
A manager-as-coach training program shouldn't just be a one-time event but rather a continuous learning process. You need the right ecosystem to execute this continuous learning process and develop a coaching culture.
Zavvy helps you build this ecosystem with ease.
Use Zavvy to effortlessly:
✈️ Onboard managers and explain the entire process and tech setup with a short tutorial
👥 Conduct group exercises or cohorts for practicing different coaching situations
🌱 Offer a huge library of third-party courses on all coaching skills with our Learning Experience Platform. All the recommended courses above are available on Zavvy.
🔄 Make 360 feedback a regular part of your performance management system, so managers get feedback on their coaching skills.
📅 Book a free 30-minute demo to set up the entire coaching ecosystem to train managers, equip them to coach team members, and also collect feedback.