Grant Howe is VP of research & development for Sage North America’s Nonprofit Solutions business, based in Austin, Texas. Follow him on Twitter and read his first post in the Tag, You’re IT! series.

Technical leadership generally gets a bad rap for not having quality soft skills in managing people. Most of us have grown up through a technical career ladder that values technical brilliance over these desired soft skills.

As bright techies with “leadership potential” we are often thrust into leadership positions with little training and a shift of importance to working with people versus working with “bits and gear.” Our initial move to a management position is often made with little to no training, mentoring, or support. Tag, you’re it….

This blog will focus on methods that will allow you to quickly begin to provide leadership and direction and overcome the lack of training and support new technical managers often suffer from. Execute well and you might find yourself quickly outperforming more experienced classically trained managers.

Today’s topic is coaching employees.

Coaching

It’s important to both listen to your employees as well as provide feedback. Where I work we have a quarterly coaching session with employees. Sure, I have an individual status meeting each week as well as a group status meeting, but coaching is special.

The focus of coaching sessions is to get your employee to bring “Did Well” accomplishments and “Next Time” improvements to discuss. The idea here is to keep the employee talking for 30 minutes about what they think of their own performance. It's 30 minutes dedicated to listening and dialog with their manager about themselves.

As I allude to above, you should have multiple touch points in listening and talking to your employees.

Be Direct

Not many folks like their bad news candy coated. Even fewer like excellent news delivered casually. Before you meet, write down the important points you want the employee to take away from the discussion (preferably one).

Think of a single sentence that clearly expresses the heart of what you want to communicate, deliver it, and discuss the facts around it. Make your point and discuss it, don’t tell a story.

Be Recent

You remember last year at that meeting, well there was something you said that….?

Most people can barely remember what they had for breakfast yesterday let alone what they said at a meeting two weeks ago. If you see an employee behavior that you either want to applaud or stop, now is the time to talk about it.

Not only will they have trouble remembering longer term, you are also likely to “alter” the memory of what happened by replaying it in your mind. Nothing causes conflict like divergent perceptions of reality. So do you have a few minutes to chat? Let’s step into my office and talk.

Be Relevant

“Did you get the memo about the TPS reports? You see, we’re all using cover pages now when we fax our reports..” – Office Space

Trying to hold an employee’s attention during a discussion where there are clearly more important things going on is folly. Trying to give your attention to an employee when your brain is fixated on another issue can insult them. People can tell when you aren’t listening just as well as you can tell when they aren’t. The result can be that they think you dismissive or uninterested.

Avoid these situations. Postpone meaningful conversations to times when you can both focus and set aside the time. “I’m sorry, but I have an important issue consuming my attention and I’m afraid I will not be able to give you my full attention.”

That said, I have to get going. I have an important issue that needs my full attention. Give some of these ideas a try and let me know how it goes in the comments below.

Tag, you’re IT!