Moving From Command & Control to Coaching & Collaboration: Dr Jacinta Jiménez Of BetterUp On How Leaders and Managers Can Become Better Coaches
An Interview with Karen Mangia
Be Authentic and Ask for Feedback: Good coaches check in with their coachees on how things are going and ask for feedback. Authentic effort is better than striving to be perfect. Share with your team and/or direct reports that you’re working on developing your coaching skills as a manager and ask them for feedback on how you’re doing.
The number one leadership initiative in any organization today is improved coaching. Coaching empowers employees, empowerment drives engagement, and engagement drives performance. At its core, coaching is about transformation. Leading distributed teams requires transforming how we coach and changing our play calls and playbooks to get things done. As a part of our interview series called “Moving From Command & Control to Coaching & Collaboration; How Leaders and Managers Can Become Better Coaches,” we had the pleasure to interview Dr. Jacinta Jiménez, PsyD, Vice President of Coaching Innovation at BetterUp.
Jacinta M. Jiménez, PsyD, BCC (also known as “Dr. J”) is an award-winning author, psychologist, and board-certified leadership Coach with a 20+ year career dedicated to the betterment of individuals, leaders, and organizations. As the Vice President of Coaching Innovation at BetterUp, Dr. Jiménez drives the development of groundbreaking technology-enabled science-backed coaching approaches for helping today’s top organizations foster resilience and mental flourishing at work. She earned a B.A. Psychology from Stanford University, an MS and PsyD in Clinical Psychology from the PGSP-Stanford PsyD Consortium, all with top academic distinction.
Thank you for joining us to explore a critical inflection point in how we define leadership. Our readers would like to get to know you better. What was a defining moment that shaped who you are as a leader?
This wasn’t a singular defining moment, but more so a series of consistent defining moments that helped shape my purpose as a leader — my maternal grandmother Mary was only able to achieve an 8th-grade level education. Because of this, she instilled in me the importance of education towards empowerment. She became the champion of my academic career. She worked as a maid at a roadside hotel, and she would write to me every month to tell me just how proud she was to see me in school. Along with each letter, she would include $5 as her way of helping me manage costs. She continued this practice throughout my entire academic career — all the way into my postdoctoral matriculation (which is a lot of time and a lot of letters)! This commitment truly defined and shaped the way I approached my education and the responsibility I feel to pass along those learnings and inspire others to pursue their goals.
John C. Maxwell is credited with saying, “A leader is someone who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” How do you embody that quote as a leader?
My ultimate North Star purpose as a leader is to educate and empower others through science to live with great authenticity and vitality. They say, “actions speak louder than words,” and I couldn’t agree more. As a leader, I try to live out my values in a way that inspires others. Leaders are uniquely positioned to cause a ripple effect of good if we can embody the qualities that we want to see more of in the world. If we act in a way that makes others proud to follow and inspired to emulate, that’s truly the most effective way to motivate others.
How do you define the differences between a leader as a manager and a leader as a coach?
Managers are responsible for ensuring that their team’s activities and priorities are aligned with the organization’s overall goals. An effective manager also goes beyond that to support their employees, help with their development and equip them with the mindsets and skillsets to lead and grow in their career. Coaches like the ones in our network at BetterUp, on the other hand, are trained and have the level of expertise needed to help a coachee find their biggest levers toward optimal performance, using a structured process marked by accountability to progress.
That said, we’re seeing that the lines between manager and coach are becoming more blurred, and in our latest research, we studied 852 organizations, comprising 30,000+ individual employees around the world, to understand the impact of Coaching Culture on transformation initiatives, performance, well-being, and more. We found that organizations where both formal and informal coaching practices are woven into the culture, operations, and norms realize significant gains in revenue, growth, and return on shareholder value relative to their competitors. Employees in these organizations also experience vital gains in productivity, performance, and across every single marker of well-being that BetterUp measures.
Coaching Culture is one where managers coach their teams, leaders, mentees, and peers. They provide healthy feedback and support each other to learn faster, and people feel inspired to leverage professional coaching and self-development tools to evolve their skills and themselves with the business. Leaders as coaches play such a huge part of building a healthy coaching culture in an organization — they not only have management skills, they have coaching skills. These skills show up in how they lead, help teams overcome challenges, and provide support and guidance for their people. Managers who take a coaching approach will help people adapt and grow, driving peak individual and team performance. They look for “coachable moments” that ultimately serve to drive progress and growth for the individual and the organization.
We started our conversation by noting that improved coaching is the number one leadership initiative in any organization today. What are some essential skills and competencies that leaders must have now to be better coaches?
I’ve always said the secret to great coaching lies in motivation, which you can find in my prior blog post on our website. Overall, the most successful coaches foster the intrinsic motivation already within their coachees. Successful coaches understand that if a coachee’s motivation comes from their coach, the client won’t create lasting change and get the results they want. That’s why I developed the 3D Model of Motivation coaching philosophy and framework to help coaches make a bigger impact with their clients, which includes three components –
- Discover and Decide: What is the person’s motivational makeup? How can coaches use that information to create a development plan?
- Develop Discrepancy: How does a coach spark motivation in the coachee?
- Deepen the Drive: How does a coach help a person practice maintaining their motivation when things get tough?
We’re all familiar with the adage, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” How are you inspiring — rather than mandating — leaders to invest in upskilling and reskilling?
Technological advances and the COVID-19 crisis have drastically shifted how we work, particularly over the last few years. As a result, organizations and employees constantly need to find ways to adapt, and part of that adaptation is reskilling and upskilling. The key to inspiring leaders to find value in both is helping them to understand the positive outcomes that result from successfully training existing employees. At the core, through upskilling and reskilling, organizations can retain top talent, and when an employee feels their organization is invested in their growth and development, it leads to stronger outcomes.
According to McKinsey, 87% of executives are experiencing a skills gap in their organization, or expect to in the next few years. In order to keep up with this pace of change, we recommend these five steps to inspire leaders and help get them started, while avoiding a talent shortage -
- Identify the skillsets and mindsets your company will need — you may find that mindset shifts are actually more important here than learning specific skills/capabilities!
- Train all employees in those identified skillsets and mindsets
- Design personalized reskilling plans
- Encourage a growth mindset
- Test and adapt
Let’s get more specific. How do you coach someone to do their best work? How can leaders coach for peak performance in our current context? What are your “Top 5 Ways That Leaders and Managers Can Be Effective Coaches?”
The good news is that coaching is deeply human at its core — it requires us to tune in and turn up our interpersonal skill set. Accordingly, coaching someone to achieve their best work can greatly benefit from incorporating principles of psychological science. Here are the top five ways managers can be effective using this approach:
Understand Individual Motivators: Different people are motivated by different factors. We are all unique beings with different cultures, experiences, values, and more. Coaching cannot be a one-size-fits all approach. Using principles from psychology, a manager can identify what drives each team member — be it recognition, monetary reward, personal growth, or contribution to a larger goal. Understanding these intrinsic and extrinsic motivators allows for more personalized, inclusive, and effective coaching.
Focus on Progress in the Form of ‘Small’ Wins: It’s not surprising that psychological studies have shown that positive reinforcement can be more effective than punishment in motivating individuals. Behavior change is more about small cumulative gains (versus large ah-ha moments); acknowledging micro gains, providing constructive feedback, and celebrating small successes can boost morale and encourage continued effort and improvement.
Develop Emotional Intelligence: Effective coaches not only understand their own emotions but are also adept at recognizing and responding to the emotions of others. This involves empathy, active listening, and effective communication. Work to practice being attuned to the emotional well-being of your team members by creating an environment where employees feel valued and understood.
Implement Goal-Setting Theory: According to Edwin Locke’s Goal-Setting Theory, clear, challenging, and attainable goals enhance employee performance. Managers should work with employees to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals. Regular check-ins to track progress and adjust goals as necessary can keep team members focused and motivated.
Be Authentic and Ask for Feedback: Good coaches check in with their coachees on how things are going and ask for feedback. Authentic effort is better than striving to be perfect. Share with your team and/or direct reports that you’re working on developing your coaching skills as a manager and ask them for feedback on how you’re doing.
By applying these principles from psychological science, managers can create a more supportive, motivating, and effective coaching environment. This approach not only helps individuals to perform at their peak but also contributes to a more positive and productive team culture.
We’re leading and coaching in increasingly diverse organizations. And one aspect of workforce diversity on the rise is generational diversity. What advice would you offer about how to effectively coach a multi-generational workforce? And how do you activate the collective potential of a multi-generational workforce?
I’m genuinely excited by the opportunity that comes along with having multiple generations in the workplace. Multiple generations allow for more diversity of thought, perspective and experience. We’ve all likely heard about different workstyles of each generation, and given how the world has changed and how our priorities change as we progress in life, it makes sense that our values and priorities will shift depending on our unique context. The best advice I have for leaders trying to bridge generational gaps is to lead inclusively. Data from BetterUp shows us that inclusive leadership results in employees who are:
- 50% more productive
- 90% more innovative
- 150% more engaged
- And 54% lower employee turnover
In order to activate the potential of a multi-generational workforce, it’s important to acknowledge and celebrate the different generations and what they can contribute. That said, my advice on engaging and coaching groups of people always has to take a personal, individualized approach. We can’t paint people with broad brush strokes just because they fit neatly into a generational category — so I’d recommend getting personal with each individual wherever possible to understand what they value, what they aspire to and what they struggle with that gets in the way of reaching their potential. You might be able to find trends and themes along generational lines, but in order to be representative of your entire population, it’s important to have a wide pool of feedback and perspectives to ensure your organization is acting in the best interests of the people on your team.
You’re referring to emotional intelligence, in a sense. What are two steps every leader can take to demonstrate a higher level of emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is crucial when it comes to leading others. I’d say the top two things a leader can practice demonstrating is a higher EQ to build self-awareness and withhold (or at least momentarily pause!) judgment. At work, we can sometimes let our emotions get the best of us or be quick to judge others. Whether you’re a leader or not, I think we could all benefit from learning to take a step back to understand how our emotions are coming across through our behavior and leading with curiosity and compassion instead of judgment.
Words matter. And we’re collectively creating a new leadership language right now. What are the most important words for leaders to use now?
One of the most important words that comes to mind is actually Merriam Webster’s 2023 Word of the Year, which is “authentic.” At BetterUp, we have some great data as it relates to authenticity and we believe authentic leadership is more than bringing your whole self to work; it’s about letting direct reports see you and leaning into what makes us human. We’ve also found that authentic leaders deliver +50% net profit margin, +79% y/y eps net growth, and +62% y/y revenue growth for their organizations. Furthermore, authentic managers also lead to more team agility, focus, and innovation. So not only do people really resonate with and connect with leaders who are perceived as authentic and real, but it also has a broader impact on overall organizational goals.
I keep inspiring quotes on my desk. What’s your favorite “Life Lesson Quote,” and why does it mean so much to you?
There’s a quote I love that has been attributed to Viktor Frankl: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” The quote emphasizes that between any external event (stimulus) and how we react to it (response), there exists a moment of choice. This space, although it might be brief, allows us to consciously choose our response instead of reacting impulsively or habitually. In essence, this quote encapsulates the power of human consciousness and the ability to control one’s reactions, leading to personal growth and true freedom. It highlights the importance of thoughtful reflection and self-awareness in the journey of personal development.
Our readers often like to continue the conversation. What’s the best way for readers to connect with you and to stay current on what you’re discovering?
Readers can visit our website at www.betterup.com, follow us on social media via our Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, or X, and download our app in the Google Play or App Store.
You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and read my latest book, The Burnout Fix, which is on the prevention of burnout in the workplace through pro-resilience practices. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Thank you for sharing your insights. We appreciate the gift of your time and wish you continued success and good health.
About The Interviewer: Karen Mangia is one of the most sought-after keynote speakers in the world, sharing her thought leadership with over 10,000 organizations during the course of her career. As Vice President of Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce, she helps individuals and organizations define, design and deliver the future. Discover her proven strategies to access your own success in her fourth book Success from Anywhere and by connecting with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.
