How to Prioritize Your Managers Development, Group Coaching

Group Coaching | How to Make Time for Your Managers Development

The role of manager is complex. Managers are tasked with weekly, monthly and quarterly goals while also juggling internal meetings, ad-hoc questions and fire drills from team members. They are asked to provide never ending real-time support while also thinking strategically to build a long term plan. Due to all of these ever present demands, their personal growth and development often falls to the bottom of the priority list. In other words, it never or rarely happens. There's a solution, build it into their work day schedule by partnering with a certified coach to facilitate group coaching sessions.

We develop most successfully when there's a combination of learning techniques in place. The 70-20-10 model tells us that 70% of our professional growth will come from work experience, 20% will come from interacting with others and 10% will come from formal education. There's a development strategy that hits all three, group coaching.

How does it work?

Find your Coach

First, you must find the right certified professional coach to moderate these sessions. You'll want to choose someone outside of your organization so that managers feel safe to be vulnerable and open with their shortcomings. Professional Coaches are trained to be able to moderate group think sessions in a way that allows everyone to be heard, while sticking to the identified goal. Selecting a coach that has experience in the given field your managers are in is helpful, but not necessary.

Poll Your Team

With the coach you've selected, you'll want to survey your team to identify areas they are all looking to grow and develop. It's important to provide a drop down of pre-selected skills and leadership character traits to develop while also encouraging them to identify their own gaps.

Build Groups

Once the feedback is gathered a strategy needs to be developed. Each group coaching session will be given a theme based off of the identified growth areas from the survey. Managers should be broken into cohorts of between 5-7 people. These small groups will meet every other week for 50 minutes.

Dive in

Trust the coach to work their magic. These sessions will be a place where managers can connect to develop their blind spots by dissecting actual work experiences with each other. Through exposure to a certified coach, not only will your managers develop the pre-identified skills and leadership traits, but they will become experts in reflective inquiry. By experiencing what it looks like to be coached, they will be more likely to do the same with their team members.

Leadership development not only helps managers take control of their career, but it also shows the team they lead how important investing in their own development is. The more likely growth is modeled, the more likely they are to do the same. Group coaching uses a combination of work experience, peer interaction and formal education, the trifecta of development.