Leading Self-Awareness: A 3-Step Model for Coaching

Coaching is a passion of mine. It’s one of those lifelong pursuits that you can never master as there is always room to get better.

I’ve found most leaders want to be strong coaches as well.

The problem is most of them get it wrong.

What do leaders get wrong?

Unsurprisingly, leaders land their roles because of their ability to perform. They spend their time in front of teams, pulling them toward a shared direction.

Ironically, it’s this strength that can make them bad at coaching people.

When it comes to performance improvement, you can’t just drag someone to a higher level.

Leader dragging someone up a wall, with the person being dragged saying high performance here I come

The reason this style of leadership doesn’t work in this context is simple: people need to want to change.

The will to improve can’t be manufactured externally.

So, how do good leaders become good coaches?

How to be a good coach

The methodology I’ve used is called the 3-Box Method.

Before we get into the model, let’s start with the principles underpinning it.

We’ve covered this already, but it bears repeating that the energy for change needs to be internally sourced, not externally applied.

Your job is to help people help themselves.

Coaching is not about the coach. If you feel like you’re saving the day, you’re probably doing it wrong.

Progress is increasing self-awareness and ownership.

If you like KPIs, these are the closest you’ll get. Awareness and ownership are key indicators of somebody that’s ready to step up their game.

The Model

A coach's goal is to help people move from bottom left, to upper right.

A 2 by 2 chart with ownership on the y-axis and awarness in the x-axis. Bottom left labeled less good, top right labelled good.

Nobody goes all the way in one jump, so we’ll break it into three stages, which we’ll call boxes.

Three boxes placed on the 2 by 2 diagram

Each box is a distinct stage, with its own theme and focus. A coach’s entire job is to help someone get from Box 1 to Box 3.

At each stage the role of the coach is to ask one type of question, until the person they’re coaching is ready to move to the next stage.

Let’s start with Box 1

Box 1 – The What Box

The role of the coach at this stage is to ask what questions.

• What happened?

• What were you hoping for?

• What went well? What didn’t go well?

The coach isn’t providing feedback or presuming to know the answers to these questions. The goal is to start the process of self-discovery, and help the individual recognize that there is a problem in the first place.

Yeah, that meeting really didn't go well

As they deconstruct what happened they will naturally increase in self-awareness and ownership.

You will know they’re ready to move to the next stage, when they stop reflecting on the what, and start asking the why.

Why didn't they even consider what we proposed?

Box 2 – The Why Box

The role of the coach at this stage is to ask why questions.

• Why do you think that happened?

• Why did they react that way?

• Why didn’t that go the way you thought it would?

At this stage, there is an acceptance that there is a challenge, and the coach’s job is to help them get to the root cause.

As they reflect, the coach should listen for when the ‘why’s’ move from externally driven (the other group didn’t do their part) to taking ownership of the challenge (I didn’t help them help me).

The cue that they are ready to move to the next stage is when they start asking how to improve.

Box 3 – The How Box

The role of the coach at this stage is to ask how questions.

• How might you address what was missed the first time?

• How can you be better prepared?

• How could you get ahead of that challenge you flagged?

This is the final box, and at this stage, the individual is fully aware of the challenge and has taken ownership of addressing it.

The temptation will be to tell them how to solve it but remember the role of the coach is to help them help themselves.

Nudge them in the right direction, but the plan they make themselves is much more powerful than the one given to them.

Coaching as a process

The 3-Box Method isn’t a linear process. It’s a methodology that should be deployed at each obstacle or stretch opportunity.

While there is always the temptation to jump right to Box 3, if you give your teams the space to work through each stage the results will be much stronger and more enduring.