90 Days to Level Up Your Leadership

Week 9Coaching Your Team

Benchmark goal: Lead as a coach.

The parallels between a coach in sport and the business leader as a coach are abundant. In both cases, coaching is about engaging a team and drawing out the best qualities and skill sets of each team member, and then finding their sweet spot where they can perform their best. The best coaches are deeply engaged and care about each team member, even in very large organizations. The coach and the team share a common definition of success that is measured by the same scorecard. They have a unified desire to win, yet everyone respects the different roles of the coach and team members.

However, the difference between sport and business is that the business coaching leader relies far less on positional power and more on trust, empathy, mentoring, and feedback. For context, look at the life and work of Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors (GM). Shortly after being named CEO in 2014, Mary faced an unimaginable crisis. Cars manufactured by GM were experiencing ignition switch failure, a botch that caused 124 deaths and an additional 275 injuries.

What Mary found when she explored the problem further was GM's culture—and several of its processes, to boot—needed a complete overhaul. Like any great coach, Mary set high standards of behavior and empowered her team with full accountability. She testified in front of Congress, admitting that GM's incompetence was to blame for the deaths and injuries. Ultimately, Mary used the ignition ...