Management Blog

Training Course - An Introduction to Coaching in the Workplace

The Institute of Leadership and Management's  coaching research has investigated the extent to which organisations are embracing the development practice of coaching. The survey of learning and development managers, decision makers at 250 large organisations, revealed a number of important findings.

  95% of organisations believed coaching as a development tool benefited the organisation, and 96% believed it benefited the individual. A broad range of specific benefits were identified including improvements in communication and inter-personal skills, leadership and management, conflict resolution, personal confidence, attitudes and motivation, management performance as well as preparation for a new role or promotion.

Our Next Coaching Course

Price:               £495*
Venue:           Portland Place, London
Date:               15th December, 2011
Duration:    1 day (9.30am – 5.00pm) includes lunch and refreshments
Availability: 3 places left

* All prices exclude VAT

Benefits

The 1  day programme will give managers/leaders the confidence to use their coaching skills to obtain the following benefits:

• Motivate others to be become high performing employees

• Improve performance and productivity through clear goal setting

• Develop team members in line with individual and company objectives to improve your bottom line

• More time to be a leader/manager

• Improved relationships

• Better use of people skills

Coaching Course Content

• Different types of coaching

• When is it  appropriate to use coaching and when other interventions would be more appropriate

•  Examine 1 model of coaching in detail GROW

•  Practising coaching skills

•  Considering opportunities to use coaching back in the workplace

•  Action Planning

•  Effective mechanisms for applying the coaching process in delegates workplace

For more detailed information or to reserve a place on our coaching course entitled An Introduction to Coaching in the Workplace visit the Call of the Wild website.

 

My drive to work this morning passing Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons. Lovely Autumn morning

Alex Ferguson - Does Leadership Have a "Use By Date"?

As a leader one of your key roles is to ensure that your staff are engaged and motivated. Alignment of aims, purpose and values between staff, teams and organization is the most fundamental aspect of motivation. The better the alignment and personal association with organisational aims, the better the platform for motivation.

Where people find it difficult to align and associate with the organizational aims, then most motivational ideas and activities will have a reduced level of success.  Similalrly with aligning organisational aims with the personal needs of staff, as highlighted by Hertzberg and Maslow, is a fundamental objective for leaders. But can the power of a leaders motivational skills wear off over time, does a leader as a result have an expiration date or a finite shelf life? Are there only so many times a leader can use certain tactics or rousing speeches before they become repetitive and loose their impact.

You just have to look the sporting arena and particularly coaches in football and rugby. There seems to a natural cycle whereby they are given a few years to make an impact. Often what seems to happen is that they have a big impact on performance to start with but the impact waines over time as their players become accustomed to their motivational techniques. Obviously there do seem to exceptions to the rule such as the Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson. He has now been manager for 25 years. So how does he do it? If you examine his approach then some of the answers lie with the fact that he rebuilds his teams every 5 years or so. So he brings in new players who are unaccustomed to his motivational techniques. He also changes his backroom staff and assistants regularly and looks to develop people from within.

So how do you avoid becoming stale as a leader. Well it's down to the leaders themselves to keep developing their skills and knowledge. If they don't then there is a real danger that things will stagnate and performance impacted upon. Also taking a leaf about Sir Alex's book then it's not just a case of becoming an effective leader yourself but developing the people who follow you to be effective leaders as well. So it's how you perceive yourself as much as anything. One of the best ways of motivating is to create a network of leaders whom you nurture. It is they who then bring that freshness and innovation in terms of motivating and improving performance.

For more information on leadership visit our leadership development page