Coaching: The Leader as the Supporting Effort
by Maj Tom Hathaway
Even in a war zone, command was only a small portion of the daily tasks. Most of the time was spent coaching. The Honorable Jim Mattis
Every Marine leader is familiar with the mantra: “teach-coach-mentor,” but few can articulate how to actually coach and few can explain how coaching is different from mentoring or counseling. Due to this lack of understanding, we collectively lack a complete set of tools with which we can empower our subordinates, enable them to take initiative, and further develop a culture that retains our best talent at every level. Leadership coaching and the “Leader as Coach” concept have been gaining popularity in the business world and have been picked up by the Navy as an approach to leadership and “building a coaching culture.”1 The Air Force has a coaching program where airmen and officers alike can receive coaching training through certified programs or find coaches external to their organization.2 Additionally, the Army now has a Training Publication with a predictably detailed and prescriptive approach to coaching.3 While the reality is that Marine leaders are already coaching, they often do so arbitrarily and without a complete understanding of the skill and practice. If we as a service better educate our leaders on implementing the skill of coaching during Enlisted PME and at TBS, those “leaders as coaches” will improve the initiative of subordinates–a key enabler of Maneuver Warfare–and will likely improve retention. Further, training Marine leaders to coach will help them empower subordinates to take more ownership of their professional and personal circumstances.
Defining the Tools
First, we need to address how the Marine Corps defines coaching and once the definition is improved, promulgate it effectively through an update of MCO1500.61. The current Marine Corps definition of coaching is inadequate because it fails to recognize the role of the individual being coached. It is top-down and directive, which is the opposite of effective coaching.
Coaching is different from mentoring and performance counseling because it empowers the individual being coached to frame their own challenges with their coach and then determine their own solutions through a guided discussion.4
Mentoring is the top-down transmission of advice from an experienced individual to a less experienced individual.
Counseling is the top-down transmission of expectations for future performance and feedback on past performance.
The three are not mutually exclusive, nor are they interchangeable in each situation. Coaching empowers individuals to come up with their own advice–it is a bottom-up or lateral process that benefits both the coach and coachee and contributes to a more flexible and adaptive organization. This is particularly useful in the framework of open-ended challenges (career path, family, financial, or leadership challenges just to name a few).
Currently, the Marine Corps definition of coaching comes from MCO 1500.61 - Marine Corps Leadership Development:
“Coaching is a process of on-going observation and encouragement of a Marine’s personal and professional growth. As an integral function of day-to-day leadership, coaching provides feedback, often on an informal basis. It also involves documented goal setting, which plays an important role in helping Marines and Sailors achieve their full potential.”
This definition is inadequate because it fails to recognize the role of the individual being coached which results in diminished ownership and empowerment. Leaders will hone in on “provide feedback” which is more appropriate for performance counseling, and confusion about the distinction will remain. Armed only with this, Marine leaders will default to: “back when I was a [insert rank/billet], this is what I did.” Because the terms coaching and counseling are used interchangeably even in our source documentation,5 Marines remain unable to distinguish the difference and will not sufficiently develop the leadership skill of coaching. There is certainly utility in mentorship, but it is not the right tool for every leadership conversation. Offering mentorship when the conversation calls for coaching is simply the wrong weapon-to-target match and will typically result in a subordinate responding poorly to the mentorship. Instead, Marines are often in need of coaching when it comes to making big decisions about their life, career, finances, or family. The Marine Leader Development program offers some effective resources for leaders to use, but in addition to a lack of clarity between coaching, counseling, and mentoring, it frames “coaching/counseling” (the phrasing on the documents even suggests they are interchangeable) as a systematic process to be planned out at regular intervals when the training schedule allows. Instead, coaching is a leadership tool that leaders should employ to build a culture of ownership, initiative, and cohesion.
To explain why coaching is a better fit for those leadership conversations concerning a big decision or dealing with a complicated challenge, a more clear and robust definition of coaching is in order. I propose the following:
“Coaching is a collaborative approach to leadership that empowers subordinates by guiding them to develop their own solutions to the challenges they face. Coaches achieve this by asking powerful open-ended questions and listening intently to the responses of the individual they are coaching–using caution not to ask leading questions or give advice. Coaching enables individuals to determine an effective set of goals for themselves and develop their own clear way ahead to achieve them.”
A Marine leader that engages in a coaching conversation helps their Marines figure out their own feasible solutions to the challenge they are faced with. People are more likely to follow their own advice after they arrive at a conclusion during the coaching conversation. Individuals leave a positive coaching session feeling a greater sense of ownership of both the problem and the solution, as well as a sense of empowerment since the solutions came from within, rather than the suggestion of another whose experience may make the advice they give seem out of reach.
Building and Retaining Maneuverists
The benefits of coaching are well-documented in the social sciences. According to a study from Rice University’s Doerr Institute for New Leaders, coaching “has a positive impact on skill-based outcomes (e.g., technical skills, leadership skills), affective outcomes (e.g., self-efficacy, career-satisfaction), cognitive outcomes (e.g., problem solving skills), and individual results (e.g., enhanced productivity levels).”6 As Marine leaders implement more coaching conversations with their subordinates, they will convey the message that their subordinates are able to solve problems on their own. There are several reasons why a Marine (or Marine leader) might fail to take initiative–not feeling empowered to do so is chief among them. Where mentorship focuses on a knowledge transfer from an experienced individual to a less experienced individual, a coaching engagement helps individuals create their own path forward when dealing with a challenge. This will not only result in better solutions, but it promotes a culture wherein subordinates feel empowered to come up with their own solutions which makes them more likely to take initiative. To relate coaching to warfighting, it is this increased initiative and confidence that will make mission command and maneuver warfare easier to implement.
As the Marine Corps seeks to update its Manpower Model that in the past has emphasized recruitment over retention, an emphasis on promoting a coaching culture can contribute to retention goals. A lack of control over one’s future is a major factor in why Marines chose to resign their commissions or opt to not re-enlist. While a coaching culture can’t guarantee everyone the set of orders or school opportunities they want, a coaching culture will undoubtedly contribute to improved self-actualization. An emphasis on coaching is in line with the manpower initiatives set forth in Force Design 2030 which are heavily focused on retention and developing an older, more mature force. The adage, “if we want Marines to act like adults, we must treat them like adults” applies here and is still compatible with the individual and unit discipline that have long been a hallmark of our Corps. Marine Corps leadership methods will need to adapt to the changing demographics of the force and an emphasis on coaching can lead the way for that minor adaptation.
Coaching at the CP
To coach effectively, leaders need to determine whether your interaction requires mentoring, counseling, or coaching.
If you are the subject matter expert and the issue at hand is related to past performance, then counseling is the correct approach.
If you are the subject matter expert and the Marine you are interacting with is there to learn from your experience, then mentoring is the correct approach.
If the issue at hand is specific to the individual Marine you are engaged with is talking to you in order to gain greater insight and understanding; or improve their self-awareness, then coaching is the correct approach.7
The most common interactions are discernment-oriented (Lat-move, re-enlistment, PCS, personal challenges, leadership challenges, etc). Now that the distinction has been made on when to use coaching, we cand discuss basic TTP’s for successful coaching implementation.
Starting the Conversation
Leaders looking to be more deliberate in their approach to coaching needn’t expend significant brainpower to develop the skill. The following TTP’s are derived from Micahel Bungay Stanier’s bestselling book “The Coaching Habit.” After brief small talk oriented on getting to know more about the Marine, set the tone for the conversation by asking your Marine, “what’s important for us to talk about today?” or simply, “what’s on your mind?”8 This puts the Marine being coached in the driver’s seat–it instantly gives them some agency in the conversation and changes the setting from one where the Marine is in “receive mode” to one where the Marine is creative and actively framing their challenge. Once the leader has confirmed understanding of what their Marine wants to talk about, the next question can be, “what do you want to achieve in this discussion?” Now the Marine has defined success in their own terms for the ensuing interaction.
Retention
It is clear that coaching is the answer for career-centric discussions. Retention is not simply a Career Planner’s responsibility, it is a commander’s responsibility, right down to the Platoon and Company levels and effective coaching can go a long way in improving retention. The reality is that whether a Marine re-enlists or decides to move on from the Marine Corps after EAS, their current unit (the one with the responsibility to teach, coach, and mentor) will lose them either way. As Marine Officers, it is our responsibility to be stewards not only of the unit we command, but the institution as well. In that regard, commanders are responsible not just to meet their unit’s retention goals, but to view it as a duty that serves the entire institution. Let’s take for example a discussion with a first-term Marine on the fence about re-enlisting. This Marine might have been in the same platoon his entire career since graduating SOI and knows very little about what else is out there. The Career Planner does not have sole responsibility for helping that Marine discern what he wants to go do. Outsourcing that conversation to a single individual in the battalion who is outside the chain of command signals a lack of interest from the Marine’s chain of command and will undoubtedly limit the Marine’s scope of options. Starting with a question like, “what options are you considering?” and following up with, “what about that option is appealing to you?” will help the leader understand what is important to the Marine. “What obstacles are in your way” and “if you say ‘yes’ to this opportunity, what are you saying ‘no’ to?” will keep the Marine engaged and likely access thoughts and ideas that had not previously been considered. These kinds of conversations will further reinforce the idea that the Marine is part of an organization which has their interests in mind (or at least gives them some consideration.
Maneuver Warfare
If we want to maximize the tool of coaching to inculcate subordinate leader initiative during operations, STEX and TDG debriefs are the logical first step. Some aspects of these debriefs are cut and dry (the science of war), but the aspects requiring discernment and judgment provide an opportunity for coaching. The reality is that subordinates will likely develop plans that differ from how their CO, Platoon Commander, or Squad Leader would have and that is generally acceptable. When encountering a plan or brief that doesn’t meet the mark, leaders should attempt to capture any positive aspect of the plan and highlight it by saying: “what I like about this plan is…” then asking questions to get the briefer and everyone else participating to consider different approaches. This approach enables the developing leader (all leaders are developing leaders), to open up their aperture to different ways of planning and decision making without being told there is only one right answer. To be clear, bad planning and tactics should be highlighted and debriefed as well so they are not reinforced. This approach reduces the shame felt over mistakes that will stifle initiative and make subordinates focus on pleasing their platoon sergeant/platoon commander/company commander the next time. Instead, they will feel empowered to have some autonomy in figuring out a better solution in the future which is the point of TDG’s and STEX’s in the first place.
Service Wide Change - A Proposal
Improving the collective and individual skill of coaching does not require a formal curriculum, Marine Net Classes, or Annual Training. Instead, it requires MCO 1500.61 to revamp the definition of coaching, provide a meaningful framework and guide on how to implement it (similar to ATP 6-22, but less prescriptive), and it requires the skill of coaching to be taught in schoolhouses. This should occur at Corporals Course, Sergeant’s Course, the Staff Noncommissioned Officer’s Academy, and The Basic School. The introduction of coaching at these schoolhouse environments will ensure that the whole Marine Corps has a common vocabulary as it relates to coaching, and some simple, easily implemented tools and verbal communication skills that will empower our leaders. Adoption of a coaching model would come at a very low cost to the Marine Corps. The expected return on a modest investment in a coaching model would be seen in a continuously improving culture that empowers Marines to take ownership of their own problems and the solutions to those problems. The increased ownership and empowerment will in turn have a positive result on retaining the right Marines. If left unchanged, Marine leaders are lacking an important tool in their leadership toolbox and opportunities to improve ownership, initiative, and retention are missed.
Ultimately, Marine leaders will continue to do what they have always done: make the best of the tools they have. The purpose of this article was to provide a better understanding of coaching as a skill and highlight its application at the small-unit level. This framework will better enable Marine leaders to coach other Marine leaders and contribute to a coaching-oriented culture. There is still much work to be done, starting with an update to the definition of coaching within the Marine Corps and an expansion of MCO 1500.61. Once that has been updated and students at Corporal’s Course, Sergeant’s Course, the SNCOA, and TBS learn it, it is up to individuals to buy-in to the process and practice the skill on a regular basis.
Maj Tom Hathaway is an Infantry Officer and Leadership Instructor at the United States Naval Academy. He can be reached at thomaswhathaway1@gmail.com
International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring 2021, Vol. 19(2), pp.24-37. DOI: 10.24384/m3az-y271
Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More, and Change the Way You Lead Forever. Page Two, 2016.