Leadership often comes with unique challenges and sometimes we get so absorbed with day to day functions and goals that the very requirement that fuels our success is put at the bottom of the priority list. A leader wears many hats, but one who is a transformational leader should allocate time and energy on coaching his team members. Coaching is not exactly the same as training, though we all are guilty of sometimes using the words training, coaching and mentoring interchangeably.
My years of working with diverse groups of people made me understand the difference between training and coaching and why is it imperative that we give equal focus to the latter:
1. Coaching is an ongoing process and is not conducted keeping a single goal in mind. Training mostly is a time or process bound activity which ends the moment it is completed, or success has been achieved. Coaching is a more continuous process where one focusses on a few team members with competencies which exist but haven’t yet been utilised to their full potential.
2. The aim of coaching is not to fulfil an aim, but rather help someone realise their full potential. If you understand the competencies of your team members well, you will have clarity on the qualities that make each individual unique. A good leader should identify and focus on those qualities and make your reports reach a stage of maximum utilisation of those.
3. Coaching is personalised enablement, it is a process which helps people stretch outside of their comfort zones, and grow to their best potential. Training could be a broader application of concepts, theories or approach. A receptive leader will dynamically modify the content of his coaching style, while training will more or less deliver the same message.
4. Impact of coaching can last a lifetime, training modules and content could change with time or the setting. But coaching will have transformational impact on people which will result in better performing teams over a long duration.
5. Last but not the least, coaching is based on a keen understating and identification of talents as opposed to training which is more about skill sets. These two could happen independent of each other, but in an ideal scenario developing talent will almost always result in better skill development.
Gone are the days when the leader used to be the person who knew the most, a successful leader in today’s times is the one who is receptive, empathetic and coaches to well utilise competencies for broader success. You don’t need to be the expert on everything as a leader, but you need to be able to coach people enough to become experts in their respective competencies.