How a leader can become a good coach

Khun Rattana is the second-generation leader of a family-owned consumer-product distributor in the South. She inherited this business from her father eight years ago and ran it successfully. A few months ago, she contacted me after watching me on a television programme. She was interested in being coached but was reluctant, thinking the fee might too expensive for her. She asked a lot of questions.
One of these questions was whether she would be better off after the coaching period and whether I guaranteed the result. I said, “Yes, with conditions,” and she asked me what the conditions were. After a 15-minute discussion, we signed a contract under this simple agreement: “She will not pay me anything if she does not experience any change, given that she actually does whatever she agrees to do.”
Guess what? She not only paid me, she hired me to coach two of her senior managers.
Recently we had another coaching session, and she came up with a topic on how a leader can be a good coach. I probed for specific details and learned that what she wanted was to apply a similar coaching process to the one I had used with her on her other managers, as she could not afford to pay me to coach all of her people – which was fair enough.
I reviewed with her the well-known simple coaching model called “GROW”, which stands for goal, reality, options, and way forward. I told her I would coach her on this topic, and she needed to summarise what she had learned at the end of the session. She agreed.
“Khun Rattana, can you share with me why coaching your managers has become a top priority at this stage while you still have other important stuff to spend time on?” I was checking her real purpose.
“Business has been growing faster than I expected,” she replied. “I cannot be the only go-for-it leader, I need more strong leaders in my organisation. I learned from you that coaching is not about telling [people what to do], it is about challenging them to come up with solutions. To be honest, nowadays I am sick of problems and am looking for solutions. I believe coaching can help me achieve this.”
“How do you define your achievement on this?” I asked.
“I want to make at least three of my managers change,” she answered reluctantly.
“Hang on, Khun Rattana. Do you still remember what we discussed? We cannot change others unless they change themselves. So, try again, what is your goal?” I reminded her of the lesson we discussed in our very first session.
“Okay, thank you for reminding me. My objective is to use this coaching process to help at least three of my managers improve their performance and behaviour in their current assignments,” she said, redefining her objective.
“Excellent. Can you tell me what you have done so far and how it has worked?” I checked reality with her.
“I normally coached my managers on ad-hoc basis – there has never been any fixed coaching schedule. In our discussions, I tended to talk too much and gave all the answers. At first, I thought giving answers would help them learn and hoped that in the future there would be fewer questions, but it has been proved that I was totally wrong. The more answers I gave, the more questions they had,” she said, describing her current situation.
“All right, what are the options for improving your coaching skills?”
“I need to consult you,” she said right away.
“Okay, apart from that, what else you can do? Let’s come up with seven options; at this stage it doesn’t matter if they are possible,” I said, encouraging her to think more deeply.
“Oh! Can it be three? Seven seems too many. I can’t think of that many.”
She negotiated, but I insisted, and then she said: “Well, I think I have to read more books about coaching, practise with you and ask for feedback, search for some good coaching examples on YouTube, record coaching conversations with my subordinates and ask for feedback from you, attend a coaching course ...” She was struggling with five, and I pushed her a little further by changing the question, asking her whether there was anyone else who could help her with this.
“Oh, I can ask for feedback from my managers whom I coach, and also practise my coaching skills with the two senior managers you coached.” She eventually completed the seventh option.
“Well done, Khun Rattana. Now, how would you like to move forward from now until we meet again in three weeks?”
“I need to schedule a coaching session with each of the three managers during the next three weeks. Along the way, I will have to equip myself with coaching skills according to the above discussed options,” she said, committing herself to the actions to be taken.
“Great, what have you learned today that can be used while coaching your managers?”
“First, it is more difficult to ask questions than to give answers, at least for me, as I always have answers in my mind. However, I realise that asking questions generates more commitment. Second, the coach needs to stand firm and push the coachee gently a little further. Third, good questions lead to good answers – I learned that during the option-generating stage: you asked three questions, ie, what should be done? What else? And who can help? Which are simple and good questions,” I summarised her learning points.
“Excellent, Khun Rattana, let’s do as agreed and come back next time to share the result with me. I am sure you will be a successful coach.” We then chatted a little further before ending the coaching session.

Apiwut Pimolsaengsuriya is executive director of Orchid Slingshot and certified coach from International Coach Federation (ICF). Write to him at [email protected]