“Managers who coach their employees report that they grow personally by becoming more vulnerable, self-aware, and empathetic. They learn to trust their employees, solicit feedback to improve their management, and in doing so improve job satisfaction and joy in their work.”
Dr. Nina Morel, Executive Director of Coaching and Leadership Development at Lipscomb University explores how leaders grow from coaching. She illustrates the necessary mindset and skills for effective coaching.
Visit & Connect with Dr. Morel on her website.
Read “Six principles of Leadership Coaching” (Center for Creative Leadership) here.
Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!
Podcast Transcript:
Steve [Intro] (00:00)
Welcome to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast. As instructional coaches and school leaders, you are tasked with guiding continuous teacher growth to create student success. This podcast looks to support you with strategies from experienced guests, as well as my own insights that I’ve gathered over the years. I’m thrilled to have you with us. Thanks for tuning in.
Steve (00:30)
While Coaching Others, We Learn. I reached out to invite Dr. Nina Morel to the podcast when I read her post, “Coaching your Employees is Good – For You.” Nina is a Professor of Management at Lipscom University College of Business in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is also the Executive Director of Coaching and Leadership Development. She has authored three books on coaching, and she is a leadership coach, a mindfulness coach, and a professional development consultant. Nina and I have worked together in the past bringing coaching skills to teacher leaders, instructional coaches, and school administrators. Nina, it’s great to reconnect.
Nina (01:18)
Great to reconnect with you, too, Steve. And I have to say thank you because you were one of the first coaching gurus that I studied and read and learned from when I first got into coaching, and it was really an encouragement to me. It has been an encouragement all these many years, so thank you.
Steve (01:38)
Well, thank you for that. Again, thanks for joining me. There’s a statement in your post that I pulled that I thought we could start with. Here it is: “Managers who coach their employees report that they grow personally by becoming more vulnerable, self-aware and empathetic. They learn to trust their employees, solicit feedback to improve their management, and in doing so, improve job satisfaction and joy in their work.” Can you talk us through that a little bit further?
Nina (02:17)
Yeah. So there is some research – there’s not a lot of research, but just becoming more and more research into how coaching actually impacts the manager, whether that’s a principal in a school or a manager in a business setting. And I think we see, as we know, as coaches, it’s a relationship. So whether you’re coaching as a professional coach, that’s your job, or as a manager using coaching skills in those relationships, it just improves relationships to use good communication skills and to also have the mindset of a coach, which I think is the other half of that skill or competency process. You have to know what you need to do. You have to know the things to do when you coach, but you also have to know the way to be when you’re a coach. And the more that happens, I think it’s just that maybe the situation of sitting and talking with someone, listening to someone deeply, helps you learn more about yourself as well as more about them. So it is correlated with better job satisfaction for people who coach and also better relationships, better working alliances with the people that you work with.
Steve (03:43)
I know I pretty commonly find in my conversations with especially school principals that they find a lot more satisfaction engaging in the coaching process than they do engaging managing in the evaluation process that is frequently a requirement of their job.
Nina (04:07)
Yes. The more you coach, the less you have to evaluate, really. The evaluation might be an official process that everybody has to go through, but when you have been through a lot of coaching conversations before that evaluation happens, it makes that go so much better. Of course, as you know, I think you’ve taught me how to use some coaching skills when you are doing that evaluation process as well.
Steve (04:32)
With your experiences with coaching in schools as well as coaching in the business corporate settings, I’m interested in your thoughts on the skills that leaders need in order to be effective in coaching. You mentioned in your blog that nearly a quarter of managers report less than a day of training and coaching, and many of them have never received a assessment or coaching on how they provide feedback. And I have to say, when I read that, I’ve been making that statement about school leadership programs for a long time, that coaching gets a really light touch, if any, in way too many of the programs. What are some of the skills that you think are critical?
Nina (05:25)
Well, I think we see that, first of all, even knowing what coaching is, is the first step. I think we use that word a lot, bandied about. But some people see that as telling people what they’re doing wrong. From a management perspective, at least in business. I think in education, we’ve come a long way in that in the last 20 years. But definitely the ICF competencies of coaching are right there. The active listening skills, the building trust in the relationship, the organizing the conversation. Creating that safe and supportive environment – I think we’ve talked about the article, “The Six Principles of Leadership Coaching,” that coaches, leaders, principals, teachers can use them with their students. You’re trying to have that safe and supportive environment, and that comes out of a mindset. It’s not just a skill you can learn. It’s also a way you have to think about the relationship. And really working with the agenda of the other person, asking the question, what do you think went well in that lesson? What are you working on? What do you want to do differently next time? So that the other person who is being coached can really set that agenda.
Nina (06:50)
I think those are some of the most important ones. So it becomes a collaborative conversation instead of a telling conversation. It’s co-creating the knowledge. And that’s what makes it fun, right? You’re learning as the coach every time you listen to the teacher.
Steve (07:15)
That co-create is a phrase that I’ve added more recently to my work. I frequently find a lot of coaches have the question of, should I be making a suggestion to the other person or not? And you can read coaching theories by some people saying it’s totally reflective and the coach doesn’t make any suggestions. My finding has been, if I’ve got an idea that could help you achieve the goal you want to achieve, and I don’t tell you, you have a right to be angry with me. Why would I be hiding it or make you guessing it? So I’ve been sharing with people that if you see yourself as a thinking partner and you and the coachee are in effect thinking out loud, and the coachee is sharing her ideas and you’re sharing your ideas, and then something emerges from that that is in effect co-created, and the the person can walk away feeling ownership in the idea, even if it was something that the coach offered up. Is that connecting with you?
Nina (08:40)
Yeah. I think that idea of holding your ideas lightly and gently and bringing them to the conversation as, oh, wow, this is an idea – when you said that, this is what I thought about. What do you think about that? It’s that yes and thing. Every idea is supposedly 10% right. Every idea has 10% of goodness in it. And if we can say, yeah, your idea, one thing I like about that idea is ____. And this is something else I thought of when you said that. And then you together create that new knowledge. One thing, when I talk to managers, principals, even teachers in dealing with their teams or professional learning communities, you go into these conversations and meetings, and a lot of times you feel like you’ve left with a whole lot of work to do. But when you go into a coaching conversation, people leave energized with new ideas to implement instead of just work to do. And I think from a management perspective, especially, one of the things, one of the reasons that managers benefit from coaching in their own job satisfaction is they’re enabling their colleagues to create something when they leave instead of just taking in problems that they feel like they need to fix.
Nina (10:18)
And that can be very disheartening as a manager to feel like I’ve got 50 problems got dumped on me today. When you’re a coach, you have 50 opportunities in that day to create something great. So it’s a shift in mindset. And it’s also, I think, both things need to happen. You have to shift your mindset to really lean into your wisdom and your knowledge as an expert in your field, as an educator. And at the same time, you may need to learn some new skills that are a little bit new. Maybe there’s something that you didn’t do as a classroom teacher. So when you’re moving from teaching to coaching to administration, there’s additional skill sets, and most of those are around just the way we use our language in conversation.
Steve (11:13)
You hit the word that I’ve been on more lately, which is conversation and dialog. That really the listening that I’m doing as a coach and the questioning that I’m doing as a coach is to spark the conversation, to spark the dialog. That’s when the reflection occurs for the coachee. I think it’s where the thinking occurs. And then I think that’s what really sets the stage for co-creation. I don’t think you can get to co-creation without conversation and dialog.
Nina (11:55)
Exactly. It’s two brains, two creative processes that are feeding off of each other. When you’re in a great conversation, the wisdom part of you is reaching out to the wisdom part of the other person, and everybody’s bringing their best in that situation. Instead of the trying to win, I think a lot of the unprotective conversations we have these days are when you go in there trying to win in the conversation, and when really you’re both winning in a coaching conversation.
Steve (12:32)
I’ve just been in a couple of conversations this week with school supervisors and administrators whose district requires them to do walkthroughs in teacher’s classrooms, a 10 to 15 minute visit, and then to respond to the teacher in an email I’m just sharing with them that to accomplish something at all in that process is nearly impossible. Email dialog just doesn’t work. One of the people that I was talking to this week, they pointed out, I think in this district, they actually call it “glows and grows.” I’m going to give you two or three glows of things I saw, and then I’m going to give you one to grow. She phrased her grow as consider. So consider this. I said back to her, you got to understand, there’s not a person in the world that’s going to read an email from a supervisor and read that word “consider” and consider that it could possibly mean consider. [laughter]
Nina (14:06)
[laughter] It’s going to sound like a mandate, right?
Steve (14:08)
Yeah. There’s no other way to say it, where if you were sitting at a table with that person and you had this conversation going back and they were putting their thoughts and ideas out on the table, you can actually move into, as I watched that happen, I wondered what this would do… So that same “consider” would actually come out and be heard is “consider.” I’m wondering and I’m questioning it. It jumped in my mind. You put that down in writing in an email…
Nina (14:39)
Yeah. When I teach you management, we talk about media richness and how email has very low media richness. You don’t have the tone. Then you have the authority distance that’s going to be there between somebody that you consider be an evaluator of you, whether or not that’s the intent. People are going to read the worst possible interpretation into that. As you were talking, I thought, wow, what I would love to ask if I just jumped in and saw a classroom, what do you wish I’d seen? What has happened this week that you wish I had been there to see it? Those moments like when you’re teaching and you look around the room going, where’s the applause? This was the perfect moment. And those are rare, but it’s great whenever they happen to be witnessed. And I love to hear about those from teachers like, yeah, man, if you could have been here yesterday.
Steve (15:52)
Yeah. Some teachers will come out and share that with you anyway. [laughter] So setting it up is a great lead in. I’ve done that sometimes with folks to say, if you were looking back over the last month, what’s a moment that you wish had been on videotape because you just would love to show it to colleagues to celebrate it? And then, if you were looking back over the last month, what’s the time you wish had been on video because you sure would like a couple of other people to look at it and analyze with you what happened or what you could have done differently? And getting people to think of the power of opening up to both of those. Being vulnerable to celebrate and vulnerable to explore what could be better.
Nina (16:45)
And when you get that relationship right, and that sounds easy. It isn’t always easy, but when you have the relationship right, I find that people are so accurate about where where their strengths and weaknesses are, but they’re so busy hiding them when they feel judged. And then, of course, when you come across as judgmental, what am I going to do back to you is judge you. That makes it even harder to lead because then as a leader, you feel judged by the people that are following you.
Steve (17:24)
If you take that back to conversation and dialog, there’s a natural tendency when you get engaged in a dialog to become vulnerable and to say things that you wouldn’t have guessed 15 minutes ago that you would have shared that with this person, but because you got into the dialog, the safety came out of the dialog. The reflection is there and you share.
Nina (18:01)
It’s this amazing thing that… I’m trying to remember who said it, but there’s really only two emotions, love and fear. I’m sure a lot of people have said that. But when you’re in a work setting, there’s a lot of fear, I think. And how do you really bring that feeling of true love and concern? Because the only way you can love kids as an administrator fear is to love the people that are serving them, right? And that’s when true flourishing happens, when you can do that with your team.
Steve (18:39)
You really trigger my thoughts that I think there’s a lot of people working in schools today that what they’re struggling with the increased presence of that sense of fear.
Nina (18:53)
Yeah. And we’ve got plenty of that in our world. And I think it’s not an understatement or an overstatement to say that you can change the world by just… I tell my students in management classes all the time, you’re going to be a manager. You will have the power to make somebody miserable or happy. You have the greatest power in the world. You can walk in there and make people have a horrible day if you want to. You can also have the power to make them have a great day. And to me, taking a coach approach to management, to leadership, is the way to help thought workers, which teachers are, most people are now thought workers, have a great day. And day by day, that changes lives, changes careers, and then it’s going to change the outcomes for kids.
Steve (19:58)
When school system systems ask me about things to look for when they’re interviewing potential coaching candidates for positions. I most frequently stress that the candidate’s desire to learn is why they’re excited about taking a coaching position. People come into a coaching position interview and they’re talking about all the things they know and have learned, and they’re anxious to share them. I get a little bit leery. And as I read your piece, that was reinforced for me that the coaching role is an opportunity for me to be in a learning role.
Nina (20:41)
It’s all about transformation, and transformation is never complete. And that’s a novice’s fallacy, I think, in any field. You think you know something, and you don’t, because the deeper you get into anything, the where you realize what you don’t know. And I think you’re spot on with that question about continuous learning. And I would say continuous learning, certainly of your craft, of your profession, but also of yourself. I won’t tell you how old I am, but you probably have a good idea. My grandkids think I’m pretty old. [laughter] But it is amazing how I am continually learning about areas of myself that need to be improved upon, that have been there for 50 years that I never really even noticed until I got in certain situations. And I think to be a good coach, you have to be very curious about yourself, about others, and also really forgiving to yourself and to others and realize that we’re all constantly transforming, constantly growing.
Steve (22:09)
So the coach is as vulnerable as the coachee.
Nina (22:12)
And the more vulnerable you are, the more vulnerable they’re going to be with you, right?
Steve (22:18)
Yeah. Any closing thoughts that you might share with leaders at the teacher level, the instructional coach level, the school administrator level?
Nina (22:32)
I would just really encourage people who are not that familiar with using coaching in their management to just be open and curious to that, learn about it, practice it, and pay attention to how you begin to feel about your own role in that situation. I talk to a lot of teachers who say, oh, I would I never want to be a principal because I wouldn’t want to have to do the management part. I love being with the kids. I love doing that. But the impact that you can have as a leader in a school is, and I see it every day when I see principals that do this in their work, it is a huge impact. And I would encourage people to be open to those opportunities, whether you’re already a leader, if you’re a teacher and you want to be a principal someday, understand that you are still going to be making a huge impact, maybe even more so on people if you embrace both the mindset and the skills of coaching in your leadership.
Steve (23:46)
Well, thank you so much. I knew we’d have a great conversation to record. I appreciate it. Before you sign off, let the listeners know how they might follow up with you. Any questions that arose or look at some of the work that you’re doing.
Nina (24:03)
Sure. You can feel free to go to my website, which is ninamorelcoaching.com. You can click on there and I’ll get it, or you can email me at nina@nina morelcoaching.com. Either way. If you have any questions or comments or just a story to share, I always love to talk to coaches and leadership coach.
Steve (24:30)
We’ll put your website in the lead-in to the podcast.
Nina (24:36)
Okay, great.
Steve (24:36)
Thanks again.
Nina (24:37)
Thanks, Steve. It’s been wonderful.
Steve [Outro] (24:41)
Thanks for listening, folks. I’d love to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn at Steve Barkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.
