For organisations committed to "growing your own", the best next step is to "grow each other"
November, 2024
The six key elements of working together in Coaching Pairs:
01
TRUST COMES FIRST!
If we are to be truly open and vulnerable with our coaching partner, we have to trust them. EVERYTHING starts with trust.
This is why it is so important that everyone in a Coaching Pair CHOOSES their coaching partner. We need to be able to tell ourselves that we assume the best of them, and they asssume the best of us.
02
CHAMPIONING
Trusting our coaching partner is essential to our second core element of championing each other.
If we are to take on board any feedback that we'd rather not hear, we have to believe that the person saying these words is a champion of ours. We have to believe that they "see us" as a leader with real potential, and we in turn see their strengths as a leader too.
03
EMPOWERING
Championing makes possible the third key element of Coaching Pairs, which is empowerment.
We encourage our partner to focus on what they can achieve in their role, appreciating the authority and power of initiative they already possess as a leader.
So often we disempower ourselves as leaders. The right person can help us see this in seconds, so that we try that much harder to share why we think as we do.
This enables us to re-empower ourselves as leaders, standing more confidently in our own authority as we engage more with others.
04
CHALLENGING OURSELVES
These first three elements make possible the centrepiece of Coaching Pairs, which involves each of us challenging ourselves as leaders.
So many of us have a fear of being shown to be wrong in teams, and a mindset of self-challenge helps us keep away from behaviours that involve us offering others either repetition or plain attitude!
It is so easy for us to trip ourselves up as leaders, by responding to tricky leadership challenges with a fixed view of what is right or wrong.
Once we give ourselves permission to challenge our own assumptions, we can respond to each situation on its merits and free ourselves from set mantra that no longer serve us.
05
QUESTIONING
& ENCOURAGEMENT
The role of our coaching partner in offering questioning and encouragement is crucial to helping us develop the habit of CHALLENGING OURSELVES that much more.
These are such important moments, when we are trying to find the bravery to focus on a challenge that we know we've avoided for too long.
These are the times when we need someone who knows enough about the job that we do to ask the right sorts of questions, and gently push back if we're arguing ourselves out of being able to do something that we could actually do!
06
SHARING ACCOUNTABILITY
for ourselves and the rest of the team
These five elements lead in to the final core element of coaching leadership: a genuine sense of shared accountability.
We each know that, as individuals, we will be held to account for how we handle the challenges facing us.
We also know that we will be held to account AS A TEAM. This helps us to leave behind the blame culture that exists in so many teams.
Every one of us shares responsibility for each other's successes - and failures.
Following consultations with a wide range of Chief Executives and leadership teams, we have simplified the process of setting up Coaching Pairs.
As we explain below, they are now based on the principle that individual leaders choose the colleague who will be your coaching partner.
This takes place in a completely transparent way, during an Awayday for the group of leaders involved in Coaching Pairs.
This then enables you to establish this new process of cross-team coaching as a core part of your leadership model, with each pair having some time together as part of the Awayday.
Most of the CEOS we are talking to about Coaching Pairs are planning on introducing them for their extended leadership team: their top team, including themselves as part of a pair, together with all of their direct reports.
Some others are planning on introducing Coaching Pairs for a group of leaders working in a discrete part of their organisation, such as the top two tiers of leadership in a division or subsidiary.
How Coaching Pairs work ...
During the course of an Awayday, leaders are invited to match themselves with a colleague with whom they have a positive connection, and who they trust, as part of a Coaching Pair.
In order to keep these informal support arrangements separate from line management responsibilities, coaching partners can not share the same functional responsibilities.
Each Coaching Pair decides how best to support each other in your ongoing development as a leader.
As a general rule, coaching pairs meet together for at least an hour each month. During this time you support each other, as equals, in stepping forward more confidently as leaders and letting go of any habits - that we all have - that result in you getting in your own way, as a leader. More is explained on the next page.
After 6 months the team comes together again and leaders share their key insights from their time in their Coaching Pair. They then pair up with another colleague for the next round of Coaching Pairs over the coming six months, to support each other in continuing this process of stepping up more, as a leader.
Through each round of Coaching Pairs, we strengthen our culture as a team in which we are always conscious of our commitment to others succeeding as leaders, just as we appreciate their commitment to our success as leaders.
We capture this below:
You pair up with a
colleague in your extended
leadership team as
coaching partners
You coach each other
as equals, on the basis that there is no
hierarchy in your Pair
After 6 months the team comes together to pool insights and learn from each other
You then pair up with another leader and the team-building continues
in round 2
Creating your own "bubble" for reciprocal support, with no hierarchy
Coaching Pairs are intended to create more of a level playing field among members of the wider leadership team, minimising the ways in which hierarchy can stifle honest and open conversations.
This is why it is fundamental to Coaching Pairs that in each pair we coach each other, irrespective of our particular position in the leadership team.
During our time as coaching partners, we are EQUALS in offering each other support and drawing on each other's wisdom and insights.
In 2023 we tried out Coaching Pairs with one leadership team without making this explicit. We were struck by how quickly the Chief Officers automatically took on the role of coach and the Directors reporting to them acted as their coachee.
This is why our advice is that from the outset, you should encourage everyone joining a Coaching Pair to see themselves as entering a hierarchy-free zone.
This helps to establish the principle that Coaching Pairs are designed to enable ALL OF US to grow as leaders through all that we can learn with the support of our peers.
It is no accident that the very best teams are led by people who are only too happy to remind their team of how much they all depend upon each other for their success.
Sharing key insights
and breakthroughs
We suggest that when you come together after each round of Coaching Pairs, the CEO should ask whether anyone would like to share one or two personal insights they have gained from their time with their coaching partner.
Whenever a member of a leadership team shares a personal breakthrough in this sort of setting, this helps with forging a stronger sense of oneness among the team.
Once one or two people have been brave enough to share a personal breakthrough, others should be ready to step forward and share something they have learnt about themselves as leaders through their time with their coaching partner.
On the next page we suggest how to make best use of your time in Coaching Pairs. PLEASE make a point of skimming this page before your first session with your new coaching partner.