EDITOR’S PICK

Coaching Goes Beyond Telling People What to Doy

As a manager, how do you mentor your people? In day-to-day work, you tell them what they need to do, and the deadlines for completing their tasks. If there is a problem, you’re the one coming up with the solutions—maybe with the input of your subordinates, and maybe not. 

But as a leader, you need to go beyond managing your people. When an employee comes to you for advice on a problem that is not one you can make a decision on, for whatever reason, do you have the skills to help that person find a solution? 

MCE Quarterly has several articles in this issue addressing the many facets of coaching. Jackie Acho writes about how empathy is the superpower of coaching—because coaching asks people to change, and change can make them afraid, good coaches are empathetic. 

Gene Tiernan links coaching to giving advice and understanding strengths and weaknesses, not to performance review-style criticisms. 

Russ Terry, a life coach and an AMA faculty member, talks about how every organization should teach managers to coach, and describes the ways AMA courses can create good coaches through the GUIDE process. 

Peter Bregman, another AMA faculty member, shares some advice about how to institute training for coaches. According to him, “people need to be hyperaligned and laser-focused on the highest-impact actions that will drive the organization’s most important outcomes.” 

To show what a path to success looks like, AMA/MCE and Frank’s International share a case study that demonstrates how AMA/MCE helped the company put together specialized training programs for its staff around the world. 

AMA/MCE also shares a member survey that reveals the challenges of encouraging engagement and success at all levels. 

As Terry covers in his article, AMA/MCE has courses that can give managers the skills they need to be superlative coaches. Check out the catalog today.