Mentorship enhances our ability to evolve and achieve
Image by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash
A coaching culture is an appealing ingredient that forms part of an organization’s broader culture. An ingredient that’s part of the recipe to enhance and inform an organization.
In fact, "Business coaching has gone from fad to fundamental. Leaders and organizations have come to understand how valuable it can be, and they’re adding “the ability to coach and develop others” to the ever-growing list of skills they require in all their managers" (Forbes, 2010).
A coaching culture improves one's ability to evolve and achieve results.
A coaching culture is evident by the values and behaviours displayed by leaders, managers, and followers — It exists at all levels.
A coaching culture is underpinned by internal capabilities.
Promoting coaching behaviours at every interaction is an intent, geared towards developing coaching skills in senior executives, leaders, and managers.
For a business to adopt a coaching culture, the organization must establish processes and incentivize buy-in companywide.
What is a business coach?
The purpose of a business coach is to help business leaders, founders and entrepreneurs to identify what it is they want from their business venture to ultimately help them achieve their objectives.
Coaches are professionals who can help others to identify the problems that prevent them from reaching their potential.
Business coaches work with clients to implement a strategy, with swift action to point them in the right direction going forward.
The coaching culture model
A coaching model helps organizations and individuals to identify their current state in order to build a sustainable coaching culture.
Likewise, a coaching culture defines the desired level of alignment with respect to the company’s mission, vision, values, and goals — Strategy.
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For a business to cultivate a coaching culture, a committed intent is necessary to weave coaching into the fabric of the business.
Coaching aligns the actions and mindsets of employees with that of leaders and the business objectives.
It can be difficult for leaders, entrepreneurs and Startup founders to admit that they need help. It goes against the grain of the very independence that makes them who they are.
Every leader, business founder or entrepreneur will face challenges at some stage in their career.
Coaching experts are there to help others to break down barriers, that may or may not exist, to work smarter rather than working harder. Coaches are best described as sounding boards who can extract our inner feelings in order to reveal our true self.
Guidance and gratitude
A coaching model can help organizations and their employees to gain clarity. Direction. It maps out what’s required to progress. Step up to the next level.
Building a coaching culture in the workplace better positions companies to grow and nurture talent. (Forbes, 2016)
This can be achieved through appreciation. Celebrating the traits, skills, behaviours, and awareness that have been developed and integrated to date. In addition to recognizing and rewarding group and individual progress.
The individual level of a coaching maturity model can foster self-awareness, assisting individuals to identify where they are, and where they want to go.
A coaching model provides guidance — actions to take in order to achieve the desired progress.
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Final thoughts
Below are the attributes, the six key elements that help to foster a coaching culture in an organization:
- Values — The level of engagement and ownership of core values communicated and practised at all levels in the organization.
- Organizational focus — Embedding coaching principles in an organizations’ culture through daily interactions.
- Outcome focus — Clearly defined benefits of the collective social responsibility of an organization with respect to commercial and operational effectiveness.
- System integration — Enhances the value, metrics, and transparency of coaching by embedding processes, structures, and systems in a companies' performance infrastructure.
- Coaching skills — The level of investment in training and importance that’s given to the development of coaching skills. Those who can avail of it, and how it functions in practice across the business.
- Scope and commitment — The level to which coaching support is available, offered, promoted, and practised across all verticals in an organization.
On the job mentorship and coaching is becoming the norm for leadership today. An attractive trait in modern leaders. A pre-requisite even. A function of leadership.
That said, if coaching is not part of business culture, progress can be impaired.
Coaching is a choice — So choose wisely!