Leadership Corner: Employee Engagement- What’s your leadership style?

Have you evolved away from Command/Control to the Coach Approach?

Hi! I’m Lynne Brodie. I’ve helped leaders from top brands and corporations like you invent new products and services to generate multi-million dollar revenue streams because I understand what not only clients, but employees crave.

I’m an Empowerment Expert, Business Intuitive and Professional Alchemist helping you find your gold. I have a B.A. in Psychology, an ICF credentialed Coach and decades of experience working for Fortune 500 companies and worked with clients on 6 continents. I’ve been told I’m a constellation of all the right talents, abilities and skills intersecting to create the Rx your company needs.

Leadership styles are an important aspect of employee engagement. What is yours?

The standard for leadership styles used to be command/control, which is telling people what to do and giving orders. Over the years many companies have moved away from that style to the coach approach. Have you?  Do you know the aspects and benefits of the coach approach?

For over a decade, I have been a licensed facilitator for The Coaching Clinic®, which teaches managers to become leaders by using the coach approach to management.  It’s an extremely effective style to developing your employees, delegating and taking much off the leader’s plate. Not to mention it speaks to the top 5 HR issues of: Core Competencies, Leadership Development, Attraction, Retention and Succession Planning.

Most importantly, the coach approach style increases employee participation and engagement in their own growth and development.

The coach approach looks for coachable moments vs. command/control.  It’s the old story of ‘give a man a fish and you feed him for a day vs. teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’ Command/control gives them a fish. The coach approach teaches them to fish.  If you only keep telling them what to do, where to find it, etc. they will never learn to think for themselves.  Whereas, if you recognize and seize the opportunity to ask them how they think they should handle it, what they would do and the results they expect from their solution, you’ve created an opportunity for development. Developing employees is a top responsibility of being a leader and supporting your employee to succeed. Everyone wants to work for someone they can learn from and who helps develop them and their career trajectory.

Sure, I know it’s easier to just tell them what to do. However, that’s only short term.  Long term, when you’ve taught them how to ‘fish,’ it:

• Not only develops out their potential
• Takes a lot of the constant work off your plate
• Solves your time poverty issue
• Enables you to bond with them
• Creates an environment of learning, confidence and trust

All those benefits and more lead to a greater percentage of employee engagement.  There are so many wins here for the leader, employee, team and company, it’s hard to ignore.

If you haven’t made the coach approach the nucleus to your leadership style, I’d be happy to help you do so.

It’s my honor and privilege to help you and your company’s culture pivot to harness your genius, activate your flow and get you into the flow zone. That’s the special gift that has been given to me and that I offer to you and the world via Individual Flow, Interconnected Team Flow, Intercultural Flow Retreats, the Brain Trust Society Think Tank and The Coaching Clinic® Empowered Leader Workshop.

Listen to Lynne describe what it means to fire on all cylinders at once and be in Your Zone.

Let’s activate your full brain access to create a trusting culture.  Schedule your Individual Flow Session today.

Continue to follow my blog series as we address the way forward to solving employee engagement.  It’s about how you intend to satisfy what employees seek and you can do this by activating their flow.