Google “coaching strategies for leaders” and you’ll find unlimited ideas of how to be a good leader. Collaboration, clear goals, transparency, manage conflicts, provide constructive feedback. 

All excellent points, but the foundation to all of these is communication. Whether it’s a professional relationship, a personal relationship or something in between, communication is the key to success. Strong communication skills are the foundation of all the other skills you need to lead your team. 

A strong leader can be the difference between success or failure of a team. Leadership impacts performance, trust, respect and morale. We all want our team to bond over positive collaboration and not a shared hatred for an ineffective leader. Employees remember if you empowered them, cared about them, taught them. 

Building your team’s success starts with building your own. 

Just because you earned your leadership role doesn’t mean you’ve learned everything and have nothing else to improve upon. Practicing better or different coaching strategies can build a more positive and successful team in a variety of ways. 

Coaching strategies can improve the communication between you and your team. They can help better communicate your vision for a certain project or for your team as a whole. 

Trying different strategies can also enhance your self-awareness of any strengths and weaknesses you possess. They can help you determine your leadership style and guide you to make better decisions once you’ve determined how you lead best. Coaching strategies can improve your skills and make you a stronger leader. 

No. 1: Build trust with your team member(s)
Even though you are leading the team, you need to be a part of the team, too. Be open and honest with information you can share. Make casual conversation with individuals. Showing kindness and being friendly with your team doesn’t mean you lose respect as a leader. 

• Adopt an open-door policy: Make sure your team knows they can come to you for anything.
• Be transparent: Don’t sugarcoat the truth or not share pertinent information. Transparency builds trust and open communication. 
• Show concern and care: You don’t need to be besties with your team to show kindness when it comes to personal or professional struggles.
• Practice constructive feedback: There’s a difference between constructive feedback and telling someone what needs to be fixed. Practice tact, and don’t forget to give positive reinforcement as well. 
• Show interest: You don’t need to invade the private details of someone’s life to ask how their weekend was or what they did on vacation. 

No. 2: Learn how to provide constructive feedback
We are all different. We process information differently. We react to praise and criticism differently. We thrive in different spaces. As a leader, know the individuals who make up your team. You can’t treat everyone the same and expect the same results.

• Understand each employee’s strengths and weaknesses: Maybe Jane is great with crafting words, but John is better with editing the words Jane put together. Or Jane is good with organizing spreadsheets, but John is better at getting numbers on those spreadsheets. Knowing who is best at what not only builds a successful team but also makes people feel confident in their contributions. 
• Understand each employee’s individual personality: Most people have heard of the different love languages. Well, the same goes for employees. We all react to things differently. Get to know each person to see what motivates them. 
• Provide actionable feedback: Don’t focus on the negative and what went wrong. Focus on how to work toward the positive. 
• Have a goal your employee(s) can work toward: Set attainable goals your team can reach, and then celebrate when they do.

No. 3: Develop a coaching mindset
Employees look to their leaders for advice, resources, support and encouragement. Success isn’t just about good leaders but also about fostering good employees.

• Focus on empowering your team, not controlling them: There aren’t many situations where “controlling” brings warm, fuzzy feelings, and the workplace is no different. No one wants to feel like they are being controlled. Instead, empower, engage and encourage your team.
• Coaching builds trust and a safe space: Coaching, guiding, leading your team will create an environment where people are happy, productive and willing to go the extra distance. They are also more likely to stay at a business, therefore saving time, energy and cost from constant employee turnover. Practice validating what they are experiencing and then believe they have what it takes to learn and achieve what the team or business needs.
• Practice coaching skills and continue learning: We can all learn more. Start a reflective process with yourself.  Look back on conversations and notice where things went well and didn’t go well and what you want to do differently next time. Once you have found where you need improvement and how to achieve it, make the decision to do better next time. 
• Recognize and reward employees: Whether it’s a “thank you for your contribution to this company/organization” handshake in the office, announcement on a stage in front of everyone or monetarily on a paycheck, recognize those who are helping you build a successful company/organization.

No. 4: Practice Active Listening
Looking over someone’s shoulder, checking your email or phone, multitasking and nodding along with no verbal response is not active listening. And your employees can tell. The foundation of good communication is good listening. Practice it until you achieve it.

• Listen carefully, without judgment and give your full attention: You’re not interested in being judged and neither is anyone else. Listen when someone is talking and respond appropriately if you expect them to listen the next time you have advice or direction to share.
• Look for non-verbal clues: Slouched posture, drifting eyes and checking phones are clues people aren’t listening. If you don’t realize you’re doing those things, pay closer attention and remedy it.
• Reflect on what you heard: Taking feedback into consideration is important because our opinion isn’t the only one that matters in a team. Let your team know when you’ve made a change because of something they brought forward. It will encourage open dialogue in the future. 
• Look for training and continued education opportunities about active listening: There are books, podcasts and other resources to help with improving your active listening skills, including sessions with Aiyana Coaching.

Being a leader is a tough job. Being a good leader is an even tougher job. With some leadership coaching, it’s easier to find your strengths and weaknesses and improve those weaknesses. Active listening, open communications and encouraging others are a few ways to build an amazing leader and therefore an amazing team.