Faced with the evolution of management methods and organizational models, the manager’s posture is also tending to reinvent itself. In more and more companies, the local manager plays a real role of “coach”.

Better performance, increased engagement, motivation, well-being at work… This managerial posture is very promising. But how do you combine coaching and management within your company? Here are some keys.

Integrating coaching into your management style

Above all, it is necessary to redefine one’s management style and adopt a collaborative and participatory leadership style.

To deploy such managerial practices, the manager-coach must:

Establish a bond of trust and a close relationship with your employees;
Encouraging, supporting, coaching and enhancing its teams;
Empower employees, develop autonomy and promote freedom of initiative and the expression of ideas;
Placing people at the heart of its management;
Develop the skills of its teams, take the time to train them to reveal individual potential;
Promote team cohesion, mutual aid, collective intelligence and establish real team coaching;
Deliver benevolent and encouraging feedback.

Like a sports coach, the manager-coach’s mission is to accompany, guide and advise his team to improve collective performance and achieve the desired objective.

Authoritarian, directive or delegative management has no place and goes against the philosophy of business coaching.

Breaking hierarchical links

Combining coaching and management also involves breaking the hierarchical links between the manager and the employees. Indeed, more than just a line manager, the manager-coach becomes a real support and facilitator of performance: as such, he must therefore place himself on the same level as his employees.

This means breaking with the pyramid model and establishing horizontal management.

Redefining your company culture

To reconcile coaching and management, changing one’s managerial practices is not enough. This new approach must also be reflected in the company’s culture, in the processes and in the behaviour of all stakeholders.

This corporate culture must be based on strong human values, a collaborative spirit, mutual aid and benevolence, close to a start-up culture.

Train your managers in coaching methods

While the manager-coach posture is natural for some, it will be much more complex to implement if the company has previously applied a directive management mode.

To facilitate this transformation, it may therefore be wise to train your managers in personal and professional development methods, for example by offering them coaching training in companies.

What are the qualities of the manager-coach?

The manager-coach must be equipped with interpersonal skills, human qualities and essential managerial skills , such as:

empathy,
active listening,
natural authority,
emotional intelligence,
interpersonal skills,
exemplarity,
dynamism and enthusiasm,
humility,
benevolence,
pedagogy,
the sense of observation,
adaptability.

The advantages of combining coaching and management are numerous. On the employee side, this allows you to promote well-being, motivation, give meaning to work and establish a caring and positive environment, conducive to motivation and productivity.

The company also benefits a lot to associate coaching with his management style. Operational performance is boosted and the environment is more conducive to collective intelligence and innovation, which directly strengthens the company’s competitiveness and agility.