Coaching Skills for Leaders Workshop Date 13th March 2014 Facilitator Mike White

Learning Outcomes During the programme the participants will be able to: Explore the why and what of coaching and where and how coaching skills can be used to enhance their role as a leader Identify key coaching skills and practice how they can be used to enhance performance and encourage employee development Use opportunities for reflection to plan how best to use coaching skills in their day to day leadership role Increasing awareness of effective leadership approaches

Ground Rules Some suggestions to help get us started: Confidentiality Equality Learning Curiosity Participation Time Keeping

Leadership Offer from Engage London Coaching Sets – a series of four coaching sessions Leadership Seminars with statutory sector partners on the Leaders for London Programme on thematic areas ILM level 3 bursaries on leadership and management

Why coaching skills for leaders? 'Working in partnership with an individual to help them achieve identified goals by asking questions, actively listening, building rapport and giving feedback.' (Mike White) This workshop is focused on: Developing coaching skills not being a coach Using coaching skills as a leader to address the challenges we face What are the most significant challenges you face as a leader in your organisation?

Why coaching skills for leaders? Enabling you to help individuals: Build personal resilience, self awareness and confidence Embrace change and consider new perspectives Be accountable for their actions and performance Be open to new ways of working and shared understanding What are your personal learning objectives for this workshop?

Key Coaching Skills Powerful Questions Actively Listening Building Rapport Giving Feedback

Powerful Questions A Powerful Question is: Simple, Purposeful and asked with Integrity And Powerful Questions enable people to GROW: focus on the desired outcomes (Goals) ensure ideas are grounded in what’s current (Reality) creativity explore the possibilities (Options) encourage the power to take action (Will) What makes a Powerful Question?

Asking Powerful Questions Use ‘What’ and ‘How’ Be Specific – ‘What exactly have you tried….’ Challenge and Support – ‘Have you thought of….’ Aim for clarity – ‘How did that happen…’ Summarise – ‘What’s really important here…’

Actively Listening Cosmetic Listening – ‘It looks like I’m listening, I’m not really, I’m kind of somewhere else Conversational Listening – ‘I’m engaging in the conversation, listening, talking, thinking, talking etc. Actively Listening – ‘I’m very focused on what you’re saying and how you’re saying it’ So, What does actively listening look like? Be creative and use words, pictures and/or actions to feedback what you think

The Active Listener……. listens more than they speak is wholly focused on the speaker helps identify actions that help the speaker move forward acknowledges what’s being said ask questions, offers observations, and gives feedback

Active Listening Exercise Speaker – ‘I want to change……..’ Listener - asks questions, acknowledges key points etc. but does not offer solutions, ideas etc. Listener - offers the Speaker summary of what they heard, saw and felt while listening Speaker - offers the Listener feedback: How listened to did they feel? What effect did being listened to have? How does the Speaker now feel about what they want to change? Then swap roles and repeat the exercise

Actively Listening Be open minded and don’t make assumptions Listen for the words and the feelings Reflect and summarise your understanding Focus on what’s being said Don’t allow yourself to be distracted

Building Rapport Key ingredients include: Body language/physical gestures – Mirroring Qualities of voice – pitch, pace, volume Language/words used How is Great Rapport created? What does it feel like to have Great Rapport?

Building Rapport Exercise Speaker – talks about something of their choice Listener – engage in conversation and observer the speaker, gestures, voice quality, language Listener - match the Speakers gestures, voice and language (increasing rapport) Listener - deliberately mismatch the Speakers gestures, voice and language (decreasing rapport) Speaker - gives Listener feedback: What was it like to be matched/mismatched? What was the impact matching/mismatching? The participants swap roles and repeat the exercise

Building Rapport Building on the other's point of view Being non-judgemental – letting go of assumptions Being honest and building trust Showing empathy – seeing the others point of view

Giving Feedback Focus on development and performance Re-enforcing self esteem Building confidence Grounded in evidence Informal and Formal What are your giving feedback top tips?

Giving Feedback Exercise Use the sentence strings provided to reflect on what you have learnt so far. Then... Speaker - shares what they have learnt so far and asks for feedback Listener - offers the Speaker feedback on their reflections Speaker - offers Listener feedback: What will I now do differently? What worked about the feedback given? What might have worked better? What did I learn about how I need to give feedback to others? The participants swap roles and repeat the exercise

Giving Feedback Focus on behaviour – ‘I saw you…’ Describe what you see – ‘I noticed that you…’ Share your ideas – ‘What if you tried…..’ Explore the alternatives – ‘How could you…’ Be Positive – ‘It was great when you….’

Key Coaching Skills Practice We now have an opportunity to practice using the 4 Key Skills at the same time Agree Roles – Speaker, Coach, Observer Scenario familiarisation (or another chosen topic) Skills Practice Feedback – Speaker, Coach, Observer Learning Summary The exercise is repeated so that everyone has an opportunity to be Speaker, Coach and Observer

Learning Review The programme has been an opportunity to: Explore the why and what of coaching and where and how coaching skills can be used to enhance their role as a leader Identify key coaching skills and practice how they can be used to enhance performance and encourage employee development Use opportunities for reflection to plan how best to use coaching skills in their day to day leadership role What are your Next Steps?

Engage London and.org.uk

Mike White Professional Coach and Facilitator Mobile: