Can a manager coach their team??

Can a manager coach their team? My first reaction would be: no, of course not, this won’t work. There is too much role confusion and potential conflicts of interest. But, is this really true? Join me in thinking about the issues involved.

Conflict of interest

Is there always a conflict of interest? In the best case the manager would like the team to perform well and get along, which is also what most teams would want. In fact, I find it hard to construct a conflict of interest between a team and their manager. One case that I can come up with could be if the manager wants to take on more projects than the team can handle or if the manager would like to stretch the team too far. But otherwise? I am coming to the conclusion that in most cases it is not safe to assume that there is a conflict of interest.

Role confusion

Yes, I can see how that can be an issue. The team’s manager has different rights and duties than a team coach. One of the main differences is that the manager evaluates his direct reports. Most companies still have performance evaluation processes to decide who is a good fit for a position and to figure out who might be promoted and who might have to leave the company. A coach is not responsible for “the bottom line” and also has no business evaluating the team’s performance.

When coached by their manager, the team may not be open and feel like they have to “perform”. However, there may be exceptions. If the company or the team has a coaching culture in which openness, freedom of fear, and a good culture of mistakes are the norm, the team may not feel like they are being evaluated by the manager. Engaging in a team coaching process may also be a way to nourish this culture.

So, what do you have to take care of to make it work (if it can be made to work)?

Clarifying roles

When you want to engage in a team coaching process with your own team, it might make sense to clarify at the beginning that you want to be acting as the team’s coach and what the role of a team coach is. Make sure the team understands that you will not use any of the information from the team coaching for evaluation purposes. Maybe you could also mark the change between manager and coach by wearing a different hat or sticker or something.

A team of team coaches

Maybe you want to kick off the team coaching process by having one-on-ones with all of your team members, asking them what they like about working in this team and what could be better. Collect the answers and present them back to the team (without saying who said what). They will hopefully feel heard by you. This process can also help to generate trust.

As a second step, you could define specific development goals with the team, for example: more efficient meetings, clarity of roles and responsibilities, dealing with setbacks or conflicts. You could then ask one or two people in the team to act as team coaches for this topic: they prepare a short workshop, facilitate it and are generally responsible for this topic. If you as their manager know how to coach a team and your team does not yet have this experience, you might act as their sparring partner in the preparation. This way, the ownership for the whole process rests with the entire team.

Swap

To avoid the confusion of roles, you could also swap with another manager in your organization: they coach you and your team, you coach them and their team. This way, you can relax during the coaching process. When you are coaching the other team, you can gain valuable team coaching experience without the added difficulty of the role confusion.

Hire an external coach

I just had to mention it: I still think it is much easier to work with an external coach or with someone in your organization who has no hierarchical ties to your team. However, as we know, this is not always possible. What do you think? Can a manager coach their own team? I am certainly finding out that it is not the clear “no, never” that I previously thought.

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