Coaching leadership is a style of leadership that focuses on developing team members by teaching and guiding them. This training style is characterized by its commitment to partnership and collaboration, and is best used with a highly qualified leader and team members who are open to change. A coaching leader provides personalized support to their team members based on their strengths and weaknesses, while also gathering feedback through the body language and personal circumstances of the person being trained. This style of leadership can be used in any type of organization, from companies to sports teams, and is often employed by those who are not publicly known figures.
For example, Usain Bolt was a talented sprinter, but it was his coach, Mills, who was able to harness that talent and transform it into a skill that propelled Bolt to the top. Transactional leadership contrasts with transformational leadership (including CLS), in which leaders engage their followers, giving them autonomy and focusing on their needs for growth and development. The coaching leadership style also tends to work better with small teams or with a subset of a larger team where strong personal relationships can be developed. A coach must think creatively about how to approach the training process so that each member of the team develops and the team collectively achieves the best result.
Short-term firefighting is replaced by longer-term strategic thinking (Berg & Karlsen, 201). A lack of trust also generates managerial leadership, micromanagement and other attitudes that are counterproductive to coaching. As concluded in the literature section of an article by Berg and Karlsen at the BI Norwegian Business School, there are few concrete descriptions and research on the leadership style of coaching. This is probably because the coaching leadership style is more about developing those around them than about seeking glory or personal recognition. Coaching leadership is an effective way to unlock your team's potential.
It allows leaders to visualize the long-term goals of their team and create development plans to help individual contributors and the team in general achieve those goals. It also encourages empathy between leaders and their team members, allowing for greater understanding of each other's strengths and weaknesses. With this style of leadership, leaders can create a work environment in which people are highly motivated, eager to learn and willing to collaborate.
