Poor Coaching is a Losing Game
In the sports world, poor coaching is a losing game. A Google search reveals multiple articles speculating on who or how many division one football coaches will be fired during or at the end of the 2026 season. The reason is simple, winning matters.
It’s a well-known fact that a coach’s main role within a football team is to instruct (coach) the team how to perform at their best. To be a successful coach, one must find the weaknesses within each player and then develop those weaknesses into strengths. Great coaching not only requires patience, adaptability, and knowledge of the game, it also involves directing, instructing and training a person or group of people to achieve a particular goal or develop specific skills. Many people only associate the act of coaching with sports, but the same is true for managers who have the responsibility of coaching employees within your organization.
If any of your departments are struggling, take a step back to diagnose the potential problems. Are your managers coaching as well as they could be? Employees are dismissed all the time for poor performance, but perhaps it’s because their managers are unable to coach them to their full potential. In sports, if a team does not meet or exceed goals, the coach is held responsible. After all, it’s the coach’s job to lead the team to victory and to train each team member how to perform at his best. The same should be true for managers in the business world.
Most managers can pinpoint where employees need development, but few managers attempt to proactively turn that weakness into a strength. If a department has not met their goals, it’s usually not directly related to one employee’s performance, but instead how the manager has coached the department.
There’s an old saying …
“You’re not one person but three. The one you think you are, the one others think you are, and the one you really are”.
When it comes to departmental managers, your organization’s leadership really needs to know and appreciate each of those three insights.
Many of you are aware our PXT Select assessment measures how well an individual fits specific jobs in your organization since it measures the person’s core competencies; i.e., the person you really are. But the PXT Select assessment also comes with a Coaching Report which can be especially useful for helping leaders within the organization understand who their managers are at their core and how they can stretch their behaviors. The report also reveals what motivates the manager and it gives the organization’s leadership personal tips on how to work with the manager to coach them to their maximum performance.
Our Everything DiSC assessment can also be used for coaching. This assessment measures a person’s perception of themselves – i.e. the one you think you are. It helps the manager (and their leader) understand his or her personality style and appreciate the different priorities, preferences, and values they bring to the workplace as well as how they can learn to adapt to the style of others.
Our CheckPoint 360 survey combines feedback from the manager’s supervisor, direct reports, peers, and even customers with a personalized program for developing specific leadership skills based on that feedback – i.e., the one others think you are. This process highlights a manager’s job performance in eight universal management competencies: communication, leadership, adaptability, relationships, task management, production, development of others, and personal development.
The output from these three tools serves as an “operator’s manual” for a manager; one which helps them better motivate, coach, and communicate with their employees. Knowing the ins and outs of these assessment tools will help leaders know the ins and outs of their managers. All this information can be used to successfully coach each manager to their fullest potential.
Just because someone begins their job as a great fit, it doesn’t mean they won’t need coaching along the way. Know your assessments tools, know your managers, and coach them to their full potential. We’re here to help, call me at (248) 388-0697 or reach out to us via email at Jim@GreatLakesProfiles.com.