Very often we have been asked in systemic team coach training that “Is the Team Leader responsible to coach the team? Or Can team leader be the team coach? While there is no single answer, it is helpful to consider some of the tasks that are responsibility of team leaders and team coaches to understand these distinctions.

Team Leaders play a critical role in the functioning of the team and the complexity of their role comes from three key dimensions like:

• Getting work done from diverse personalities and maturity levels of people
• Liaoning between senior management and the team to ensure alignment of goals, visions and feedback
• Taking responsibility of failure, incompetence, motivations and culture of team
• Managing self in terms of behavior to be an example for others

While juggling all these responsibilities, the team leader needs to make several difficult decisions to ensure results are delivered. In order to ensure balance between all the expectations and achieving results team leader as human may not be able to stay objective and strategic in their thinking. Exceptions always exists however the complexity of human mind and behavior does create cognitive distortions of all sorts. As a Team coach and being a bit distant helps the coach to stay away from biases and challenge the team objectively. Relational issues create unlimited dilemmas for people resulting in complicating relationships. Working with people relationships play a huge role.

Relationships = Results = Reputation

The complexity of teams are less about the task or goals and more about the relationships however most of the organizations invest all their time, energy as well as attention on the technical part of the team in anticipation of creating a High Performing Team.

Systemic Team Coaches are invited to coach teams to raise awareness about their relational fields among team members and stakeholders. A simple and resonant way to understand relational fields is this, when two good people marry there is no problem at all in the beginning, the relationship starts changing as soon as expectations, disappointments, misalignment of habits/personalities/preferences/influences starts showing up. Now these are the same good people who are still good with their friends but not so good with the spouse. The relational field has gone through change due to the kind of relationship.

How the relational fields acting up among team members and stakeholders, heavy influence the functioning of teams.

Some of the key challenges for team coaches are:

• How to recognize hidden relational fields in the team and raise awareness about the same without creating any blame?
• How to bring systemic perspective to team members?
• How to create team goals as priority before individual priority?
• How to coach teams to create sense of team identity?
• How to ensure there are minimum assumptions?
• How to ensure to team moves forward on their agenda without really driving and tracking them?

Role of a systemic team coach is a combination of teaching coaching skills, facilitation, applying coaching skills, project managing, systemic thinking, challenging skills and at times beyond all that being available as a figure of wisdom.

What is Team Coaching NOT? Is to create manage goals and track progress. Another way of distinction between coaching and leading is Performance Vs Capability. Team coach’s role is to enhance the capability of the team and to improve the health of the relationship while motivating the team so that team is inspired to take action and willing to contribute with full heart and mind to drive performance.

The depth of understanding how people behave in relational fields like teams and having skills to navigate that through coaching is one of the key distinction along with possessing critical coaching skills like effective questioning, listening, contracting, ethics, creating accountability and action etc.

Here is a table of key differences listed by David Clutterbuck, a pioneer in Team Coaching, very clearly sharing the differences of focus of each role.

Systemic Team Coaches are trained to raise awareness through several tools and strategies to create and environment for self-motivation to take action. In simple words “What can a coach say/do that can make the team members willingly contribute to the team’s agenda that too with maximum of its potential?”.

Do leave a comment with your perspective and experience!