What is it, and what are the benefits?
Unlike team-building, which tends to concentrate on helping a team at an early stage of development or after a challenging period of change and upheaval, or team development which aims to enhance team dynamics, team coaching is a process by which a team coach works with a whole team, both when they are together and apart. The purpose is to help the team improve their collective performance, work together, and develop their collective leadership to more effectively engage with other teams and key stakeholders and become more of a high-performing team.
Much of this coaching can be provided by a team leader who sees coaching as a key aspect of their role, both by coaching individual direct reports and coaching the whole team in how it performs and engages, both internally in its team dynamics and externally with its stakeholders.
Using a coaching style for meetings:
Team Coaching aims to:
- Support high-performing teams through change
- Help them develop their individual and collective skills and strengths
- Increase self-awareness and understanding between team members
- Improve team communication
- Support deeper learning from successes and slips
- Allow the team to shift to a higher gear, leading to a more focused overall performance.