Grow Your Team with Developmental Coaching

Have you ever led a team of associates dragging their feet on the way to work, feeling unmotivated and bored with their job? It’s a common problem that can seriously affect their well-being, quality of work, and their self-esteem. They may even think their only solution is to find a new job, but there’s another way to reignite the passion and drive they once had for their work. Enter Developmental Coaching—a powerful tool you can use to help them uncover their true potential and guide them towards a fulfilling career right where they are.

Helping Associates Grow

Developmental Coaching is a process for helping associates grow to reach their full potential. First, you help them understand their passions, values, interests, and goals. You help them explore the question: “What gets me up every morning?” Second, you work together to identify areas where they can improve and develop skills that fulfill those passions. As their coach, you provide guidance, support, and feedback while your associates work towards their goals. The outcome is: Team members who are empowered to achieve greater success and satisfaction in their personal and professional lives.

It Starts With Trust And Commitment

To become an effective and impactful Development Coach for your associates, establish a strong connection:

• First, cultivate a positive and supportive relationship by establishing an environment based on trust, where vulnerability is safe. This step encourages associates to share their thoughts, likes, and dislikes openly and freely.
• Second, after you’ve established a foundation of trust, set expectations for continuous learning, ensuring that associates are committed to the process and ready to work toward their goals.

A Growth Mindset

In today’s workplace, change is rapid and relentless. To thrive, associates must continuously add new skills and refresh existing skills. It’s an environment where change is inevitable and “pivot” is the word of the day (every day). Career acceleration requires learning, adding skills, and changing behaviors. Encouraging associates to embrace continuous learning and growth is essential as you provide the support and guidance that helps them grow.

A growth mindset is critical for associate development. It’s a belief that anyone can develop their abilities through effort and perseverance. Associates with a growth mindset view challenges and failures as opportunities to learn and grow rather than as fixed limitations on their abilities. This mindset supports individuals who embrace challenges, persist in the face of obstacles, and seek new learning opportunities. It also fosters a sense of resilience and determination, as associates with a growth mindset understand that setbacks and failures are a natural part of the learning process. Helping associates adopt a growth mindset can lead to greater personal and professional development as they are empowered to improve their skills and abilities.

Approaching The Career Development Conversation

Think about how you can draw out someone’s values, interests, and motivation through ongoing career conversations. Coaching provides one approach to these discussions. If you want to excel as a Development Coach for your team, you’ll want to grow more comfortable with initiating and expanding career conversations. Ensuring a regular cadence helps build rapport and trust. In addition to exploring associate potential through these conversations, you might need to reset or alter expectations and challenge assumptions about career advancement potential and speed. Being transparent and honest increases understanding and can decrease unfortunate misunderstandings in the future.

A Career Conversation Structure

How do you uncover what motivates and inspires your associates as their coach? Is there a checklist to follow to ensure the best possible outcome? There is a framework that offers the structured conversation you would want to use with someone seeking development coaching. When followed, it provides insight you can use to guide the career advancement effort. This conversation structure is organized into four topic areas and offers a proven framework for Career Development Conversations.

• Goals
• Current Reality 
• Options & Obstacles
• Way Forward.

Starter Questions For Each Stage Of A Development Coaching Conversation

Here are a few powerful coaching questions you can use at each stage of the conversation:

• Goal:
  • What would you like to achieve in your career over the next year?
  • How does this goal align with your long-term career aspirations?
  • How will you know you have completed the goal?
• Reality:
  • What steps have you taken so far toward achieving this goal?
  • What skills and experience do you currently possess that will help you achieve this goal?
  • How can you leverage your strengths to overcome any challenges you may face?
• Options:
  • What options do you see for accomplishing your goal? And what else?
  • What are the pros and cons of each option?
  • What challenges or obstacles do you anticipate facing while working towards this goal?
• Way Forward:
  • Which option do you feel most confident pursuing?
  • How will you measure progress toward your goal?
  • What support or resources do you need to achieve your goal?

Coaching skills can be particularly effective in Career Conversations, as they help individuals clarify career aspirations, identify areas for development, and create a plan for achieving their goals. If you’re a leader looking to enhance your Development Coaching skills, a 1:1 session with a TaskHuman coach like Ron Cook, it can be an excellent opportunity to learn more about the skills and behaviors of successful coaches and the practices that make for effective coaching. Start by jotting down your questions to guide a conversation, then use the TaskHuman platform to find and connect with a coach who matches your needs and interests. Whether you’re looking to learn new coaching techniques or seeking guidance on a specific challenge, TaskHuman coaches are here to help you achieve your goals.

Do you want to explore this topic some more? Book a session with Ron Cook or another TaskHuman leadership coach today!

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