Develop Your Coaching Skills

Professional Diploma in Leadership & Management

Develop Your Coaching Skills Module 2 Lesson 2 Summary Notes

2 www.shawacademy.com

PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT

Contents

3 Lesson Objectives 3 Introduction 3 Psychological safety

6 Coaching models 7 Meeting templates

7 Coaching session examples 11 Additional resources



Introduction ‘Put quite simply, coaching is about helping someone else to learn– without telling them what to do or what to think. The idea

is that the person being coached (the ‘coachee’) comes up with all the ideas and decisions.’

Kate Burrows

Leaders and managers need to know when to coach and when to mentor. Employees need managers and leader to help

develop them and give them the skills and direct that they need.

In these summary notes, you will learn more about coaching tools and approaches that you can take as a manager and

leader.

Psychological safety Before you can be a great coach or leader, you need to prepare your employees. You can prepare your employees by

working on psychological safety in your workplace.

So, what is psychological safety? Psychological safety is defined as, “being able to show and employ oneself without fear

of negative consequences of self-image, status or career”. In other words, psychological safety means team members feel

accepted and respected within their current roles. (Friday, 2020)

Creating an environment of psychological safety moves the needle in a meaningful way. (Friday, 2020)

In addition to the findings from Google, research by Baer and Frese suggests that where psychological safety is present in a

working environment, it improves the likelihood that an attempted process/innovation will be successful. Psychological

safety has been found to:

• Improve employee retention.

• Increase the likelihood of employees to harness the power of diverse ideas from their teammates.

• Increase revenue per employee.

• Double the employee’s effectiveness rating by executive-level managers.

Lesson Objectives By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Understand and discuss the concept of coaching

• Understand various coaching models

• Prepare effectively as a coach



(scienceforwork)

How is psychological safety measured?

To make your team more successful, you first need to establish a baseline and measure improvements over time. You

might think you have a good feel for your team, but it is surprising what you will learn when you actually measure for

psychological safety. (Friday, 2020)

To measure this, Edmondson asked team members how strongly they agreed or disagreed with these questions:



1. If you make a mistake on this team, it is often held against you?

2. Are members of this team able to bring up problems and tough issues?

3. Have people on this team sometimes reject others for being different?

4. Is it safe to take a risk on this team?

5. Is it difficult to ask other members of this team for help?

6. Would no one on this team deliberately act in a way that undermines my efforts?

7. When working with members of this team, are my unique skills and talents valued and utilized?

Ways to create psychological safety:

1. Lead by example

Anyone in a position of responsibility should set an example for the rest of the company. This is applicable from

senior management, down to team leads, and managers. If done properly, the set of behaviours should become a

norm across the company.

• Ask for upward feedback.

• Acknowledge your mistakes.

• Be open to opinions that differ from your own.

• Be approachable and encourage reports to ask questions.

2. Encourage active listening

This is an important part of ensuring people feel valued and that they can contribute to the team. Ideas to

improve listening include:

• Leave phones at the door during meetings.

• Show understanding by repeating what was said.

• Encourage people to share more by asking questions.

• If certain individuals rarely speak during meetings, actively ask them for their opinion.

3. Create a safe environment

One of the keys to psychological safety is that people feel comfortable voicing their opinions and do not fear

being judged. Help teams develop a safe environment, by creating a few ground rules on how they interact with

one another. Examples:

• Do not interrupt each other.

• All ideas are accepted equally and never judged.

• Never place blame.

• Encourage and listen to out of the box suggestions.

4. Develop an open mindset

To break free of judgment and strengthen the relationship between team members, it is important to have an

open mindset. Often, we look at things from our own lens, but approaching them from a different angle can help

bring perspective. To develop an open mindset at the workplace:

• Encourage teams to share feedback with one another.



• Help them learn how to respond to input from others.

• Rather than criticise, encourage teams and individuals to see feedback to strengthen and build upon

their ideas and processes.

Coaching models

Several coaching models are available to use when preparing for your coaching session. Below are some examples of

different models to consider. You can use the models in a visual format or use an Excel or Word document to help you

when you are preparing.



Meeting templates

Here are great coaching meeting templates to for your next coaching session.

One on one meeting

• How is your life outside of work going?

• What are your top priorities this week?

• What is one recent win and one recent situation you wish you handled differently?

• Would you like more or less direction from me?

• Are there any skills that you would like to acquire in the short term?

• How do you find working with the team? What can we do to improve team culture?

• Are our meetings a good use of your time? What can we do to improve them?

• Do I give you enough feedback?

• What is something I should consider changing or start doing?

• What are your long-term professional goals?

Coaching session examples

There are a lot of free samples and templates that you can make use of when it comes to your coaching session. Below, I

have added a few examples to give you a better idea of what you can make use of.



Additional resources and reading Friday . (2020 ). What is psychological safety? Retrieved from Friday : https://www.friday.app/p/what-is-

psychological-safety

Garfinkle, J. (2019 , January 15). Ten Ways to Provide Quality Feedback. Retrieved from Garfinkle executive coaching : https://garfinkleexecutivecoaching.com/articles/provide-quality-employee-feedback/ten-wa ys-to-provide-quality-feedback

Proctor, P. (2020, February 25 ). 10 SMART Goals Examples for Small Businesses in 2020. Retrieved from fitsmallbusines: https://fitsmallbusiness.com/smart-goals-examples/

https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/02/difference-mentor-coach.html#:~:text=Mentoring%20i

s%20a%20long%2Dterm,more%20structured%20and%20formal%20approach. https://www.ebsco.com/blog-corporate/article/top-tips-for-coaching-and-mentoring-emplo yees

https://www.insperity.com/blog/5-tips-coach-mentor-future-leaders/

Develop Your Coaching Skills

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