Do you consider yourself to be a high performer? Is your career successful, satisfying and developing at the pace you want it to? If so, this is the article for you!
High performers don’t need coaching, right? They can just get on with their work, manage themselves and plough their own furrow. That’s the accepted wisdom. But it’s wrong! High performers can benefit from coaching as much as the rest of us can. Let’s explore this issue……
How are high performing employees defined?
When we listen to managers describing team members who they consider high performing, the type of language we hear includes:
- Safe pair of hands
- Can rely on them to get the job done
- They love to get on with it and need little direction
- They know what I want and deliver it
The implication here is that autonomy is key, and that these independent souls can just take to their corners and crack on. It may be true, but it misses the main point – can high performers be helped to improve even from a great level of performance?
Skill/will matrix is redundant
In the 90s, and up to today, there has been a bit of a mantra about categorising the employee types, and then deciding what support they need. It has come from the situational leadership model, also known as the skill/will matrix. Where you are on the matrix determines the support, you need. And the matrix looks like this, or a variation of it.
Apart from the obvious problem that people aren’t so easily pigeonholed, let’s look at the top right-hand corner – high skill and high will. Delegate to them! So, they get autonomy, but basically get left alone.
Does this feel fair to you, the high performer? It certainly doesn’t to me! The assumption is that autonomous people need less may be true, but it ignores the fact that high performers deserve as much support as everyone else.
This approach is classic under management. It assumes that this group won’t benefit from coaching, from further training, from being set challenging goals.
And it also misunderstands the role of coaching in this environment. Coaching is for high achievers just as much as for people struggling in their roles. Coaching lets people flourish, as well as helps them dig themselves out of ruts.
What is coaching for high performers?
So, let’s consider coaching for high performers. What does this mean, in principle?
Firstly, that the organisation is prepared to allocate coaching resources to people who are already doing well. We can all see the temptation to not do this – “they’re fine, so let’s put our resources elsewhere”. But it is important to allocate resources to high performers, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because you, the high performer feels valued and will most likely respond well to coaching. And secondly, because everyone in the organisation will see that high performers get invested in, as much as everyone else, and this helps to create a culture of aspiration.
Secondly, that the coach and you are given a high amount of autonomy in the coaching process. Of course, they can be mindful of the overall organisation’s needs and objectives. But for the most part, the coaching is there to support and help the you to develop, to continue with your focus and commitment, and even to improve further.
And final, for you, the high performers to take on a coaching approach yourselves. Often high performers end up leading teams or departments, and if they are coached well, are likely to want to use a coaching approach themselves, to manage their teams. So, the coaching cascades, and more people benefit.
(If you’re a high performer looking to develop your coaching skills formally, take a look at our ILM Level 5 coaching qualification.)
The benefit in coaching high performers can be summed up in one phrase: it unlocks even greater potential in the employee.
Given the choice, I would like to see everyone in the organisation have access to great quality coaching, whatever level of seniority, and whatever level of performance. But if we need to choose where to allocate our limited coaching resources, I would choose to allocate it to high performers – every time!
What about you? As a high performer, have you been offered coaching at work, or not? If so, has it focussed on your strengths as a high performer? We’d love to hear your comments – especially if you don’t agree with us!
Whatever your thoughts and ideas, we hope that you have plenty of positive coaching experiences!
Happy coaching!
Charlie
