myAIPMCapturing coachable moments for best practice, time-effective leadership
Sangeeta Pilger | The Mandarin
Sangeeta Pilger outlines the steps to capturing coachable moments consistently and tackling unproductive self-talk/self-doubt.
"Evidence-based research confirms that managerial coaching achieves significant benefits in the workplace through increases in employee engagement, performance and wellbeing.1
While there are many definitions about what managerial coaching is, one that brings together common elements from several definitions is: “a helping and facilitative process that enables individuals, groups/teams, and organisations acquire new skills, competence, and performance, and enhance their personal effectiveness, personal development, or personal growth”. 2
Managerial coaching can take the form of structured, prearranged sessions or can occur casually. This latter informal type of coaching occurs when managers are alert to recognising ‘coachable moments’. These are informal and often unplanned or unexpected opportunities for a manager to have a conversation with an employee aimed at facilitating the employee to problem solve or learn from a work experience.3 These informal interactions can take place in the hallway, tearoom or through virtual platforms.
Despite informal coaching being recognised as an effective practice, research confirms that managers utilise it infrequently. There are two key barriers contributing to this.
Firstly, managers feel more confident with conversations they can plan for. Secondly, a lack of time due to workload pressures deters managers from utilising coaching. Instead they take on tasks themselves or are more prone to telling others what to do. This points to a need to support leaders to get better at recognising and capturing coachable moments because these informal shorter interactions are less onerous on time and are enormously powerful."
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Capturing coachable moments for best practice, time-effective leadership, Sangeeta Pilger, The Mandarin, 2020