Understanding Situational Coaching

This model – sometimes called situational management – allows you as a business owner to look at attributes, qualities, and years of experience in your team and to work out ways you might be able to work with them in your mentoring and coaching role.

As a business leader, you’re faced with many people on different parts of their working journey. From novices in administration support roles, first-year graduates eager to learn, to true professionals who have been doing their jobs for 10 or 15 years and possibly know as much as you do – you will need to adjust your coaching behaviour accordingly and match the skill level of your employee.

The table below sets out the framework for the way you should work with each level of experience.

The Situational Coaching Model

2nd stage – SUPPORTING · Let’s talk – ask what they think · Broaden and deepen their experience · But still YOU make the decisions	3rd stage – COACHING · Let’s talk – but THEY decide · They know more about what the       business does · So THEY can make a decision · If they make a wrong decision – talk it through until they get it – the ‘A-ha’ moment
1st stage – DIRECTING · Will require lots of direction and support · You will need to tell them what to do · Not able to make decisions without direction	4th stage – DELEGATING · Full delegation to the team member · ‘I’m here when you need me’ · You make the call · Trust in their experience

This is situational coaching – tailoring your coaching and mentoring to the skill level of your team member.

Where To Use Situational Coaching In A Health Practice

As a business owner, this is a good model to use in your one-on-one meetings or performance reviews.  When you sit down with your team members, explain to them how you will work with, mentor and coach them through different stages and how you will help them progress their careers through these stages.

It’s important to remember: If you take a Stage 4 practitioner and hold them in Stage 1, they will leave. They will leave because you will stifle them. On the other hand, if you throw a novice into full delegation before they are ready, you will set them up for failure.

There will be times when something new happens, such as the need to learn how to operate a new piece of machinery. In this instance, you might need to retrain the Stage 4 practitioner – bring them back to the beginning – but with their experience, they will learn quickly. Someone who isn’t as experienced may take longer to learn…

Not everyone is a 4 on everything and not everyone is a 1 on everything.

It is your responsibility as a business owner to guide and lead your team so that at some point they get to that expert level of experience and really bring their best to your business.

So, remember to sit down with them, explain this coaching model, and build a framework around how you’re going to work with each of your team members to grow their careers.