It was a sunny day in Munich. I was a young aspiring consultant, excited for my first management role of directly leading a team, and I was preparing for one of the first one-on-ones with one of my team members. I already knew my future team, had worked with most of them before, knew the company culture and had set out to drive change with a new leadership style. Equipped with my notepad, a cappuccino, a portion of pride and in full hipster style, I went to see my team member.
Reality hit me quickly, and I got bombarded with questions for which I was unprepared and had no answers. One question in particular still echoed in my head until recently: “Do you have coaching experience, or did you take coaching training? As my manager, I expect you to coach me to help me grow professionally.” I didn’t have experience or training as a coach.
And with that, the seed of doubt in my management role was planted.
Shaping my Role as a Leader
As I continued to grow into my management role, I acted as a mentor and coach to my team – or at least as what I thought those roles meant. I focused on actively listening to my team members, asking questions, sharing new perspectives and giving clear feedback. I invested in understanding their values, dreams and objectives so I could help them apply this to their work and map it to our company and team goals.
My team appreciated this leadership style, as it supported them in pursuing and progressing their career journey. I motivated them to leave their comfort zone, helped them take on new roles, and helped them grow personally.
With this leadership style, I grew my impact even beyond my team. I had a lasting influence on the whole organisation, allowing me to grow into management roles with even more responsibility, overseeing and developing the entire portfolio of services we offered to our clients.
With a broader impact on the organisation, I also felt the weight of more responsibility on my shoulders. Suddenly, I faced challenges matching my aspirations, team members’ objectives and corporate goals.
Ultimately, I had goals that I pursued and expectations from others on my team that I needed to manage. Those reached beyond individual team members’ personal careers and personal development – there were targets, for example, on sales, securing delivery, and staying within budget.
For those goals, I was only as performant as my team.
The Coach vs The Manager
With this, the boundaries of coaching as a manager jumped in my face. But before going there, what are the differences between a Coach and a Manager?
As a coach, you are not part of your coachee’s system. Your goal is to support your coachee in achieving their very own goal: your and their objectives must not overlap!
The coach owns the process of how the coachee gets to the desired goal, but the result is the coachee’s full responsibility.
In comparison, as a manager, your team members are an essential part of your corporate system – they depend on you as much as you rely on them (Although managers sometimes think it’s a unidirectional dependency).
You own (in the sense of being accountable) the process of how your team operates AND the results they achieve – the decisive difference leading to a completely different responsibility and role for a manager.
You lose the crucial and independent third-eye perspective if you coach as a manager. You risk manipulating your team members towards your favour, being your goals – and covering it as coaching.
Conversely, if you honestly act as a coach, you compromise on your responsibilities as a manager and eventually on your personal goals.
In my case, it resulted in me being too much of a coach and too less of a manager. I ended up with a thrilled team whose members successfully pursued their journey and collaborated as a lovely and effective team. Still, I compromised on myself as a manager, failing my goals and not proceeding in my career.
I felt like I failed as a leader when I experienced career setbacks compared to my peers, as I didn’t reach the same numerical KPIs. This was a turning point in my thinking about my role as a manager.
Always be aware of your role, its responsibilities, and the potential impact of your actions – for yourself and others.
The Coach
Is not part of the Coachee’s system
Supports a Coachee on eye level
Has the objective, that the Coachee achieves their goal
Is responsible for the coaching process, not for the results that the Coachee achieves for themselves
Supports the Coachee in growing
The Manager
Is Part of the Team’s system
Manages a Team as a group of employees
Has own goals, on which they try to match the objectives of the Team
Is accountable for the Team’s processes and results
Supports the Team to grow
Systemic Challenges in the Modern Working World
Of course, a manager’s role and expectations differ between companies and depend on the organisation’s leadership culture.
Your company might have an enabling and empowering culture overall, with your manager supporting your objectives. On the contrary, you can end up boxed in between the expectations of your manager, your stakeholders, and your team, which do not match, leaving you no room for your aspirations.
Your organisation’s system constrains how directive or enabling you can be as a manager, as there’s only so much you can influence and control as a single person.
Management success comes with navigating stakeholders in all directions and balancing different leadership styles. You need to understand the values and aspirations of all the involved individuals (your team, peers, managers, customers and others) and the relationships between them that constitute them as a system.
As a manager, you are a direct part of this corporate system with direct links to its participants and need to be mindful of your position and power in that.
An organisation’s system does not need to restrict you. On the contrary, understanding it accelerates your growth and influence as an efficient and effective manager.
Finding my place as a Manager and as a Coach
By becoming more aware of my corporate system, current situation and my respective role, I more effectively leveraged my skills as a manager and coach. By that, I prioritised my goals and even became more precise with my team regarding what we aim to achieve together, giving them more straightforward guidelines. Still, I could support them as a coach where needed to develop on their career journey and achieve their goals.
It was a turning point for me, as it gave me more clarity about my responsibilities and objectives, gave me focus, and enabled me to leverage my various skills best.
Subsequently, I achieved my goals, got the desired promotion and made my team happy.
Conclusion
In summary, Manager and Coach are two distinct roles. While coaching skills can be beneficial as a manager, it’s vital to be aware of your role, the connected responsibilities, and their boundaries. Subsequently, you must choose your way of communicating and interacting with others—whether it’s your team or coachee.
Even though including coaching skills in your repertoire of leadership styles can improve your adaptability to different contexts and situations and your ability to support your team in a particular context, for me, the golden rule is: as a manager, you are not the coach for your team!