Personal Branding & Leadership Coaching

You’ve probably experienced the frustration of being distracted at work. Perhaps you were pulled into a never-ending Slack discussion, and when it finally ended you struggled to focus on the task you were working on. Or a coworker criticized you, and now you can’t stop replaying his comments in your head.

It’s totally normal to lose focus after a period of time (which is why you should be taking regular breaks). But if you find yourself easily distracted throughout the day, you might want to consider tweaking some of your morning habits. They probably won’t eliminate all distractions, but you’ll at least start your workday strong building a good foundation for the rest of the day.

More and more organizations are looking for their managers to use coach-like behaviors in conversations with their direct reports.

Here are five of the most important techniques coaches use in their conversations with clients.

Consider how these techniques could help the managers in your organization be more coach-like in their communication style.

First-time managers often ask themselves how to develop a leadership style that suits them: “Who should I model myself after? What kind of leader should I be?” It’s great to think critically about your approach to managing others, particularly when you’re new to it, but these questions won’t exactly help you.

That’s because they assume that leadership is something you try on and show off, a “style” that’s curated and intentional. But especially in the beginning, your style will be based far less on mirroring others’ habits and behaviors and far more on instinct and intuition. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The concept of Coaching Leadership was created in the late 1960s by Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard but it wasn’t until 2002 when psychologist and author Daniel Coleman documented it as one of his six leadership styles that it became popular.