dallert123
Please provide a response to the discussion below. Not an…
Please provide a response to the discussion below. Not an explanation of what they said, a reply please.
Coach others to become better; better employees, better leaders, and better people.
At face value, my leadership philosophy is lazy, boring, and borderline repetitive. But, from my past experiences and in my industry, this leadership philosophy is practical and exciting and devastating and challenging and rewarding. Of course, the effectiveness varies wildly depending on the team.
Coaching, as an alternative to managing, is less about directing individual tasks and more about being a resource to a team of individual contributors (Griffin, Phillips, & Gully, 2020). Safety professionals are, generally, individual contributors all working towards the same (or at least similar) goals. Because safety professionals know the work that needs to be done, they require less direction on day-to-day tasks but may need more general guidance on how to complete their tasks and apply their skills in specific settings. As a manager of safety professionals my role is to provide the coaching that my team members need to complete their work. Unfortunately, simply coaching an employee on what to do is often not enough to aid in their work and is certainly not enough to aid in their growth.
The first goal of my leadership philosophy is to make better employees via coaching. As a leader I want my team to perform at its peak and by coaching each employee, individually and according to their specific needs, I can raise the overall performance of the entire team. Coaching towards being a better employee allows for a wide range of specific coaching goals and styles, as well as time commitment and emotional commitment. A struggling entry-level employee will require more coaching and may have a goal of simple mastery on a single topic. Conversely, a seasoned employee may require very little coaching to support their individual goal of becoming an expert in a specific area. Either way, as a coach, I can provide each individual with the tools to achieve their goals with a positive outcome for each individual and for my team’s overall performance.
Coaching towards being a better employee is the bare minimum as a leader and is mutually beneficial. Coaching towards leadership and being a better person is wholly dependent on the level of followership of each team member. Some employees have no desire to be leaders and some employees have no desire to better themselves. To stretch the sports analogy, the junior varsity soccer coach is not responsible for fielding the varsity soccer team the following year; the JV coach is only focused on one season. However, a good coach will recognize the players that have the desire to grow and they will nurture that growth. As a conscious leader, there is a duty to invest in employees for more than just the betterment of the team (Sisodia, 2019). Fortunately, as Barry Wehmiller taught (Harris, 2017), making employees better in any way makes the organization better. Coaching my employees to be the next generation of leaders in the safety industry is rewarding.
The final tenant of my philosophy is to coach employees to be better people. While that sounds horribly self-righteous, the effort is simpler than that. This part of coaching is centered on being available to support employee needs in their personal lives. While the effort is not to be their friend (though that happens in some cases) building limited personal relationships with employees can provide them with trust and the leader with understanding and empathy. This final tenant is the most rewarding and most difficult.
Griffin, R.W., Phillips, J.M., & Gully, S.M. (2020). Organizational behavior: managing people and organizations (13th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage. https://www.gcumedia.com/digital-resources/cengage/2020/organizational-behavior
Harris, C. (Ed.). (2017, November 27). Everybody matters: A documentary short based on the best selling book. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or6YoXfHWSE
Sisodia, R. (2019, December 17). Conscious capitalism unpacked: An evening with Raj Sisodia. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyWMffZbCF8
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THANKS!
