A study on the need for improved coaching skills development conducted by the consulting firm, CO2 Partners, found that only 11% of employees listed their supervisors when asked “whom do you turn to for advice on problems at work?”

Organizational surveys show that most managers believe they are providing coaching to employees and score themselves high. However, most employees state they receive little coaching from their leaders and score their leaders low.

Leaders often fall into these common coaching traps:

• Trapped by reactive problem solving that puts out short-term fires and doesn’t build long-term personal, team, or organization capabilities.

• Jumping into coaching discussions with little planning and no framework to guide the conversation.
• Confusing giving advice/feedback with coaching.
• Perpetuating the Manager-Employee Dependence Cycle: Employee complains about what’s not working, hopes for solutions and advice from the manager, and expects him or her to own the issue. The manager listens to the problem, gives advice, and expects results from the employee.
• Climbing The Ladder of Inference way too quickly; rapidly stepping up from data/observations, to adding meaning, making assumptions, jumping to conclusions, adopting beliefs, and taking actions that often damages relationships and doesn’t deal with the root issue.
• Spending 85 – 90% of conversations with employees on project or status updates and very little time on coaching and developing. Employees want a 50/50 ratio.
• Confusing performance appraisal/management with performance coaching.

It’s very easy to slip into these traps without realizing it. Which ones ensnare you? How about your organization’s supervisors and managers? What’s your coaching culture?

Coaching has become a popular “leaderspeak” buzzword. Like driving skills, many managers rate the quality and quantity of their coaching much higher than the people around them do.

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Join in my complimentary webinar on February 12 on “Building Extraordinary Coaching Skills: Six Steps to a Coaching Culture with Exceptional Leaders.” Click here for details and to register (connections are limited).