Coaching, Mentoring and Managing: A Coach Guidebook

Enthusiasm and Optimism

The tools of enthusiasm and a positive outlook are

communicated to a team primarily through the manager’s choice

of language. Note when you ask, “How are you doing? How was

lunch?” Keep interest in your voice so it doesn’t sound like a

rhetorical question that generates immense surprise if someone

actually responds. Common language responses communicate

apathy, lassitude and lack of interest. Go beyond routine responses

to get better results — change your language. Use words like

“outstanding,” “wonderful,” “excellent,” “great,” “fantastic,”

“terrific.” Start using words that go beyond the norm and

watch what happens. You’ll have a different attitude toward

the commonplace.

The team will respond when you walk into a room if you

watch and respond to their expressions, postures and attitudes.

Their backs will straighten, the corners of their mouths will turn

up, and they will unconsciously reflect your positive spirit in spite

of themselves. But here’s the best news. Managers who have

tested upbeat language in the workplace report that after a while,

just entering the office or building will produce the same effect!

Enthusiasm and optimism are also expressed in how you

describe a situation or explain a job. Going beyond the norm or

emphasizing the positives can affect the team’s approach to the

task. Face it, as a coach, you set the mood.

In case you think it’s wrong to say you feel great when you

don’t or act like you do when you don’t, understand this: If you

ask the nation’s most successful coaches how they are doing any

day of the week, they’ll tell you “great, wonderful, terrific,

excellent.” Why? Because they are choosing their attitudes. They

are choosing how they feel and how they want the team to feel.

Openness

Another key to effective coaching is to be nonproprietary. This

means not holding things back from your team members to retain

a power position. Be open in how you feel or what your reaction is

to a situation. Certainly there are informational areas restricted to

managers. But withholding information that enables a team

Coaching, Mentoring and Managing

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Use words like

“outstanding,”

“wonderful,”

“excellent,” “great,”

“fantastic,”

“terrific.”