Coaching Article

Unlocking Leadership Well-Being with Coaching

February 14, 2024
By Jeffrey E. Auerbach, Ph.D., MCC, NBC-HWC

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While 66% of people are doing well in at least one of these areas, just 7% are thriving in all five. Ninety-three percent of the population is suffering in at least one area of well-being—indicating high potential demand for coaching.

When you combine low well-being with other aspects of inadequate leadership development, such as low emotional intelligence, the leader often has an especially negative effect on their employees.

Two lines of research underscore the connection between leader well-being and the effect on one's employees. First, the stress perspective highlights the impact of stress or boredom on an employee's performance and quality of life. A healthy workforce, according to this view, thrives when undesirable states, such as volatile, insensitive leader behavior, are absent. Second, the well-being perspective emphasizes positive emotional states. When one's work environment provides positive relationships and meaningful, challenging tasks, employees have enhanced workplace performance and quality of life.

One way to help employees have greater well-being is for the leader to recognize and appreciate their employees' strengths. Gallup's research shows that if a manager ignores their employee the employee has a 40% chance they will be actively disengaged or hostile towards their job, but if the manager focuses on the employee's strengths, the chance of being actively disengaged is only 1 in 100.

Leaders have a unique opportunity to create an optimal environment for organizational well-being by helping team members with:

• Effective communication skills
• Engaging in positive decision-making
• Fostering employee motivation

Low Well-Being and Leadership Efficacy

Let's look at three examples of how low well-being hurts a leader's effectiveness. A leader's low well-being reverberates across an organization—managers who neglect their own well-being inadvertently weaken their leadership effectiveness.

Communication, decision-making and motivation are especially impacted by low well-being.

Communication Breakdowns
Strained managers struggle to connect, leading to collaboration gaps and conflicts. Managers who prioritize their well-being are in a more receptive state to actively listen, convey vision, and help foster an inclusive environment.

Decision-Making Dilemmas
Strained leaders do not have the mindset to think creatively and grapple with suboptimal choices, negatively affecting team outcomes. Effective decision-making is the cornerstone of leadership. Adequate well-being creates the mental conditions for managers to analyze complex situations more effectively, collaborate, balance short-term and long-term goals, and interpret data objectively.

Motivation Matters
I emphasize to my clients that the leader's mood is contagious. Stressed leaders often transfer their stress and act impatient, resulting in dampened team morale and hindered employee growth. High well-being enables managers to be more receptive, enabling them to understand diverse needs, and engage proactively which nurtures potential and supports innovation.

Coaching Homework Assignments for Well-Being and High Follower Engagement

To cultivate well-being while enhancing leadership effectiveness, coach your clients to be a leader that others want to follow by considering these practical coaching assignments.

Self-Care Audit
Encourage managers to assess their well-being. Are they getting adequate rest, managing stress, and maintaining work-life balance?

The coach can ask: "On a 1-5 scale, five being excellent, how are you doing in these areas?"

• Getting adequate rest?
  Follow up question: What is one thing you can do this week to get better rest?
• At least 20 minutes of exercise daily?
  Follow up question: What exercise activity is practical for you to do at least five days of this coming week?
• Managing stress?
  Follow up question: What is one thing you would enjoy doing this week that helps you lower your stress level?
• Engaging in activities that bring joy?
  Follow up question: What is one thing that brings you joy – when could you do more of that this week?

Empathy Development
Well-being extends beyond physical health. Managers need to refine their emotional intelligence and a best practice is to regularly reflect on one's emotions, reactions to others, and interactions. What triggers empathy? What hinders it? Self-awareness is the foundation for developing one's emotional intelligence and leaders ideally have a self-awareness and reflection practice.

The coach can ask: "What is your self-reflection process on how you interact with others?"

Follow up question: What can you do this week to demonstrate to others that you understand and care about how they feel? Your client may be interested in reading the 2021 Harvard Business Review article, entitled, Connect with Empathy, But Lead with Compassion by Rasmus Hougaard.

Delegation Mastery
Overburdened managers often struggle with delegation, usually because they think they don't have enough time to delegate and they see it as risky. You can share with them the ingredients that make up effective delegation, emphasizing trust in team members' capabilities.

The coach can put on their "consultant hat" and share the two most common reasons managers struggle with delegation:

• Not Enough Time
  Ironically, the very tasks managers feel they don't have time to delegate end up consuming more of their time in the long run. Delegation requires an investment—training, and monitoring others. Most leaders have to intentionally prioritize delegation, recognizing that it initially takes extra time. However, the payoff is having more time later to focus on their core responsibilities.
• Fear of Losing Control
  Managers who invest considerable time, energy, and passion into a project find it difficult to let go. Delegation involves calculated risk-taking. It means relinquishing the steering wheel and accepting that others may do things differently. Overcoming this resistance is essential for leadership success and organizational growth. Leaders who don't delegate hinder their own growth and limit their team's potential.

The coach can ask: "What will you do this week to empower others and foster growth within the team?" A follow-up question is, "What task is most important to delegate soon and to whom?"

Leaders who prioritize well-being aren't just engaging in a personal choice; if they balance their own well-being with an awareness and commitment to support their team members' well-being and utilization of their strengths, it's a strategy for effective leadership.

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