Coaching can help your employees overcome their professional weaknesses and meet performance goals, but it isn’t always the best thing for you to do. Study the following scenarios, from F. John Reh’s article, Employee Coaching: When To Step In, to learn how to take a step back:

• Your employee is still going through the training process.

Coaching at this point is going to waste your time. Your employee needs to finish his training and learn the basics before he needs your guidance. You also don’t want to risk confusion if your training methods differ from the person training him. It’s best to sit back and wait until his training is complete.

• Your employee isn’t sure of what you expect from him.

If you use coaching to help your employee overcome his performance barriers, how can you coach him if he doesn’t even know what level he should perform at? Set clearly defined expectations for him to work for, and then coach him if he has a hard time meeting those expectations.

• You don’t have the time.

Coaching is not a fast process. Think of the difference between a fast-food restaurant and a fine-dining restaurant. Food quality increases when the restaurant staff has more time to prepare it. The same goes with coaching. You’ll cheat your employee out of a great learning experience if you try to coach him in a hurry. Offer to help only when you’ve got enough time to give.

• You’re having a bad day.

Forget it; if you’re not in a good mood, how can you possibly help your employee via coaching? You need to be enthusiastic and friendly to make the coaching process effective. You could also give your employee the impression that you don’t want to help him, making him less apt to ask you in the future.

Filed under: Management Minute