A manager who has never learned how to conduct a performance conversation may need guidance, examples and a chance to practise. Another manager may have attended several courses on the subject and still be avoiding a conversation with someone in their team.
On the surface, both appear to need help with performance management. A closer look may lead to different development for each of them.
Where training is useful
Training can give a group a shared foundation in the responsibilities and skills of leadership. People can learn how to set clear expectations, structure feedback or support someone else's development, then practise with guidance before applying it at work.
For emerging leaders, that foundation can be particularly useful. They may have been promoted because they are good at their own job and find themselves responsible for people without having had much preparation for what that involves.
A well-designed programme can also include reflection, challenge and personal development. Training covers a wide range of approaches, so it is worth examining the content and delivery before making assumptions about its depth.
What coaching can help someone explore
Coaching creates more room for the particular person and what happens for them in their role. The work may reveal why someone repeatedly takes too much responsibility, why they find disagreement so difficult or how they have come to depend on being the person with every answer.
In our approach, we pay attention to the patterns shaping behaviour, as well as the situation the leader wants to address. A manager who continually rescues their team may believe they are being helpful, while feeling uncomfortable whenever someone else takes the lead. Understanding that response gives them a more personal starting point for changing how they work.
The coaching still needs to connect with action. Someone can leave a session understanding themselves more clearly and need further support to use that understanding in a difficult conversation the next morning.
How the two can work together
Imagine a group learning to use coaching skills with their teams. Everyone receives guidance in listening, asking useful questions and creating space for another person to think, but they find different parts of the work difficult.
One leader feels that asking a question makes them look less knowledgeable. Another listens while mentally preparing the answer they intend to give. Someone else struggles to tolerate a pause and fills it before their colleague has finished thinking.
Individual coaching can help them explore what is happening, while shared learning and practice develop the skill itself. The programme needs room for both the common learning and those individual differences.
Sometimes the organisation needs to act too
An unclear role, contradictory priorities or a workload that is consistently unmanageable may require decisions beyond the participant. Development can help a leader work with their influence, but it should not leave the organisation's contribution unexamined.
That is why we begin with the situation rather than asking a buyer to choose coaching or training before we have discussed it. At PasedaLeader, we can combine practical development with deeper individual work where it serves the brief, and explain why that combination is being proposed.
If you are unsure which your leaders need, bring us an example of what is proving difficult. It usually tells us more than the title of a course you are considering.
