Many people want to be disruptive leaders. This is where leadership coaches come in and support the change journey. While they may not be perfect, genuine coachees will try to avoid committing leadership coaching mistakes.

Dr. Richard Boyatzis, a well-renowned professor, author, and organizational theorist said that there are 3 common mistakes people make when coaching others.

3 Fatal Leadership Coaching Mistakes

These mistakes often hinder progress on both the coachee and the coach’s side. If you are a leadership coach or an aspiring one, stay tuned. This guide will help you become a leadership coaching wizard.

1. Telling the leader what to do to fix a problem.

While this may sound like an efficient way of solving a problem, it’s not. Contrary to popular belief, telling someone what to do is counterproductive for adults. It’s also one of the biggest leadership coaching mistakes.

Being eager to help, leadership coaches often tell leaders what to do to solve their problems. However, telling someone what to do pressures the person. In particular, it pressures a leader to comply with you.

As a result, the coachee becomes defensive and stops opening up. In his or her mind, you’re only pushing for compliance, not progress.

2. Not building a caring & trusting relationship with the leader.

Many leadership coaches think that instilling fear helps leaders become better. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

Fear is a negative emotion that humans don’t want to feel. Think about this― would an arachnophobic (person who fears spiders) go inside a cave filled with spiders? Of course not.

In an effort to instill some level of fear, leadership coaches avoid building caring and trusting relationships with their coachee.

However, a caring and trusting relationship should be the foundation of coaching. It makes the leader feel that you actually care. Consequently, he or she will easily trust you and your expertise.

3. Motivating the leader using carrots and sticks.

The traditional carrot and stick approach don’t’ work at all times, including during leadership coaching.

Opposed to common belief, the said approach makes coachees less productive. According to Dr. Paul Marciano, a clinical psychologist from Yale University, the carrot and stick approach also reduces their morale.

It’s because people become motivated only because they want rewards or dislike punishments. In a sense, leadership coaching sessions become more of a game of who gets the most carrots or the least sticks.

Do you really want your leadership coaching legacy to be solely based on giving rewards and/or punishments?

How to Avoid Leadership Coaching Mistakes

The following solutions correspond to the leadership mistakes mentioned above.

1. Help the leader set clear goals.

Sit down with your coachees. Ask them what they want to do in the next 5 years.

Is it business expansion to foreign countries? Is it being promoted to an executive position? Whatever their goals are, make sure they’re crystal clear.

Then, ask each leader what he or she can do to reach those goals. By doing this, you avoid telling the leader what to do.

Instead, you let your coachee draw a roadmap. This roadmap must be as specific as the leader’s goals.

2. Build a resonant relationship with the leader.

A resonant relationship is characterized by caring and shared visions. This results in trust, which you must earn no matter what.

By having resonant relationships with your coachees, your coaching sessions become less transactional. Then, it’ll be easier for you to gain the trust of your coachees.

It doesn’t end in gaining your coachee’s trust though. You have to nurture this trust until you build a genuine resonant relationship with your coachees.

3. Use the positive contribution model to motivate the leader.

As stated earlier, the carrot and stick approach is not that effective when used in leadership coaching.

The best alternative to this traditional approach is the positive contribution model.

Instead of motivating your coachees by giving rewards and/or punishments, you can motivate them by reminding them of their positive contributions.

Positive contributions come in many forms. Some examples are the improving leadership skills and better life view of your coachees.

Being a leadership coach doesn’t mean that you have to be perfect. However, it pays to know the common leadership coaching mistakes so you can avoid them.

Please take note that avoiding leadership coaching mistakes doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, hard work, and the right coaching mindset to overcome leadership coaching mistakes. Happy coaching!