10 Steps to Becoming a Coaching Leader featuring Matthew Kelly

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How can you start to build that coaching culture in your organization by applying some of these steps?

This is Lead with Culture. I'm Kate Vollman, and on this episode we're gonna be hearing from Matthew Kelly as he shares the 10 steps to becoming a coaching leader.

Hey there. I am so excited about this episode because we're changing things up a little bit. You are used to hearing interviews from some of our incredible dream managers and our wonderful coaches on lots of different topics around culture and leadership and employee engagement and dream manager, and all the things to help you grow as a leader.

And today, we're gonna hear from Matthew Kelly and he shares incredible content over on his YouTube channel along with obviously all of the books and, and all of the content that he creates. And he recently did a video, called 10 Steps, becoming a Coaching Leader, and that came directly from his book, the Culture Solution.

If you have not picked up a copy. We invite you to do so because it is a phenomenal book, sharing the six immutable principles of a dynamic culture. And principle number six is Grow your people by creating a coaching culture. And in the book, he shares these 10 steps to becoming a coaching leader, and they're really important because.

As a leader, our number one role is to help our people grow. Like that is what we are here to do. When our people are growing, then our organization grows. When our people are getting better, then we're able to accomplish more in things and have more fun doing it, because that's part of the process and the journey, right?

organizations that have great cultures, they're not only efficient, effective, and productive, but. You can feel the enthusiasm and joy in the people that are working there. You can feel that they're all working towards something together. There's just this energy at companies that. You can tell that they have that coaching culture.

You can tell that, that the team members appreciate the leaders that they get to work with because everyone in the organization is helping each other grow. And so we're gonna hear from Matthew. He's gonna share these 10 steps to becoming a coaching leader. And then I'll be back. And let's talk a little bit about some of those steps and

Which one or ones you wanna start applyingin your leadership role today?

Coaching is the future of leading people.

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Number one, be honest. Don't hold back. Be honest with people. Tell them the good, the bad, and the ugly. Then remind them of the good. Again, people need and deserve to know exactly where they stand. Honesty is the most admired quality in the leader. Be candid and kind. Be direct and stick to the facts. Number two, priority.

Make your coaching sessions a priority. Don't blow them off and don't let the participant blow them off either. Coaching is your number one priority as a leader. Number three, connect. Begin by establishing a connection. Allow them to know who you really are as a human being. Share what's important to you, not all at once, but little by little.

Over time and above all, communicate that you have that person's best interests at heart. That you want to help them grow and succeed, do it naturally. Talk about what you did or are going to do on the weekend. Favorite foods teams, you follow what you are reading. Number four, prepare. Make sure you know before the meeting exactly what you want to work on or how you want them to grow and improve.

This matters regardless of how long or short the meeting is. It could be five minutes or an hour if you don't give them something to work on, you're telling them that you're a hundred percent satisfied with everything they do and there is no way for them to improve. Number five, what and why? Coaching allows you to teach the why, not just the what.

Leaders often have to ask people to do things. But don't have the time to explain why that task or project matters. Coaching allows you to explain the why. This helps raise up future strategic leaders because the strategy is usually locked up in the why. It also passes on valuable institutional knowledge, get beyond tasks and instructions, and really help people understand why we do things and why.

We do them a certain way. Understanding the why allows people to make Mission King more than ever before and inspires them to commit to that mission more than ever before. Number six, ask. Get really good at asking questions. The very best coaches use questions to teach powerfully. Don't tell them everything.

Allow them to propose and initiate the solution. Ask questions that lead them to where they need to go and allow them to figure it out for themselves. A great question to start each session with is, what are you hoping to get out of this session today or what would be most helpful for us to work on today?

Number seven, listen. Don't do all the talking. Great. Coaches are really good listeners. Number eight, feedback. Invite your participant to give you feedback. Don't take it personally. Ego is the enemy of coachability. If it is good feedback, live it. Thank them for the feedback more than once. It is extremely uncomfortable for people to give their boss feedback.

Number nine, encouragement. I'm good at what I do. My books have sold more than 50 million copies, but there are still days when I'm filled with self-doubt. When I sit down to write. We never outgrow the need to be encouraged, so be sure to take every chance you get to encourage your team members. And number 10, gift.

Coaching is an incredible gift. Let those you coach know that this will serve them well, not just at work, but in every aspect of their lives, and not just now at this organization, but for the rest of their lives wherever they go. Don't be embarrassed to say that you are intentionally investing in them with the hope that they will invest in others to help them grow.

Dynamic cultures are coaching cultures. Nothing will more radically increase employee engagement than coaching. What is a coaching culture? It's a culture where coaching is a natural and normal part of every day. It's an organization where coaching is encouraged, desired, contagious, and celebrated a culture of coaching.

Is a culture of excellence. When you're actively coaching your people. Mediocrity has nowhere to hide. When you stop relying on hearsay to lead your team. A disengaged employee cannot hide behind the rest of the team's work coaching makes you aware of the things you would never be aware of otherwise.

There is simply no other way to really understand your people and what they are capable of. Contributing coaching leads to excellence. If we want our people to be excellent, coaching is a natural next step. We cannot reasonably expect our people to grow if we do not coach them.

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How can you start to build that coaching culture in your organization by applying some of these steps? we can pick just one, right? Just one. I'll share two. Uh, that really stuck out to me at least today. I feel like depending on the day, I appreciate different pieces of this list cuz they're all so good.

but the two that really stick out to me right now is, uh, to prepare and really it's preparing to have difficult conversations and it's preparing to have conversations that. That you're being intentional about helping your people grow. You're giving them the feedback that they need. We find that a lot of leaders, they're uncomfortable giving feedback.

They're uncomfortable sharing some of the ways that their people need to grow. And what's so beautiful is that in a coaching culture, I. Feedback comes easily because when everyone in the organization is used to hearing and receiving feedback, then we become less defensive, we become more excited, and we wanna invite that feedback because when you have a great team, when you've got those A players that you love working with, guess what?

They want to grow. That's what they're there for. They believe that the work that they do, part of why they enjoy working is because they're growing. They're growing professionally, they're growing personally. They're learning new skills, and they're learning some of this stuff from you as their leader.

When we think about the leaders in our lives, they probably did most of these steps on this list, and that's why we remember them. That's why we appreciate them. And so being prepared, To have those conversations with people being prepared to share feedback, let people know what they're doing well and where they need improvement.

And then the second one that I really love is that encouragement. That encouragement, right? we all need encouragement. I love that, that Matthew shared that. Of course he knows he's incredible at what he does, but even when he sits down and writes, he sometimes gets that feeling of, wait a second.

That pause, and we've all felt that before. This is why when we have a leader that we know has our back, if someone asked your people, does your leader have your back? What would they say? Do they feel like they can come to you? Do they feel like they can talk to you when they, might be feeling a little bit of that imposter syndrome or when they might be feeling a little bit like they're not winning.

We want everyone on our team to feel like they're winning, or at least give them the roadmap to what that looks like to get people back on track if things aren't going well. And that is what we get to do as coaches. And so this is such an incredible list and not a passive list. This should not be a list that we just read gloss over and say, yeah, yeah, great.

It's this list of how can I start incorporating this back into my organization? and even helping the people that you lead to become better leaders by helping them understand this list, by applying this in your everyday conversations with them and your everyday leadership. And so I would love to know

those one or two things that you're gonna really, work on getting better? Because we can all make those 1% little improvements every day to become a better leader, To create that coaching culture. So people love coming to work and accomplishing great things together.

I hope you enjoyed getting a chance to hear from Matthew Kelly and this really incredible list of 10 steps to becoming a coaching leader. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. We appreciate you. And hey, if you are enjoying this podcast, would you do us a favor and if you haven't written a review, please go over on iTunes and write a review and also take one of the episodes that you really enjoyed and send it to. A colleague, a friend, someone in your life who you think would really benefit from some of the stuff that we talk about here.

Let's help lift each other up. Let's help coach other leaders, even our, our friends and our colleagues. I feel like so often, when you're in a leadership role, you almost take on this, coaching role with other people in your life because we just, we can't help ourselves because that is our desire is really to help.

The people around us grow and get better, so that would be amazing. We would so appreciate it. And until next time, lead with culture.