Article Resources

Many companies make the dangerous mistake of hiring someone simply on the basis that they have managed people before, taking for granted that they are an experienced manager who will not require any further help. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Managers are human beings too, and just as making home-cooked meals for a few years doesn't qualify someone to be a master chef, though it might be a good start, becoming a good manager consists of much more than having past experience managing some people for a while.

Management coaches enter at this point. Human resources are most beneficial to companies when they provide management coaching to help turn mediocre or poor managers into world-class leaders. Fortune 500 corporations will spend millions of dollars to train their employees with the best coaches the world has to offer. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs don't know everything either. They know this, which is why they're willing to spend so much money to train their people.

An analogy can be drawn with the field of music - George Gershwin took lessons in harmony from other composers, at a time when he was the most famous and well-paid living composer in the world! If the leaders of the world take personal coaching, isn't that a good indication that management coaching is an important part of bringing out the best in your management team?

The only question is where to draw the line. Does everyone who is someone's supervisor need management coaching? What if someone is only a project leader? Lead engineer? Merely "senior" engineer, managing no one but himself or herself? The answer is yes, yes, yes and yes.

Anyone making management decisions needs coaching, and the reason is that no one is perfect. We all had to learn things somewhere, but changes in the world (especially increases in business efficiency) require us to adapt and stay ahead of the curve. Like the kid's saying "you snooze, you lose", managers who receive no training "lose". They lose their edge, their team's advantage, and, if they are particularly bad managers, they might even lose their work force.

If you have received good management coaching, then your teams will not be destroyed by single incidents, and bad days will not have carryover effects. Leadership is much more difficult than managing, and much more rewarding for your business. But leadership doesn't happen by itself. Management coaches can help you develop the leaders your business needs to be great.

For your management team as much as for any Fortune 500 CEO, raising leaders doesn't happen without investing in them, and management coaches are by far the most proactive way of doing that. If the leaders of the world take personal coaching, isn't that a good indication that management coaching is an important part of bringing out the best in your management team? Does everyone in a supervisory position need human resources coaching? An angry lapse will never destroy a team, a bad day will never mean a bad month, and teams are led, not just managed, when they are the focus of competent coaching.