Should You Use Leadership Training or Leadership Coaching in Your Nonprofit?
Depending on your experiences with training or coaching, you might have a preference for one over the other. But should we make organizational decisions based on our preferences?
I'd argue no.
Which is why I wanted to bring this episode to you. It's an episode where we will compare leadership training versus coaching and explore when to use which solution.
Listen to the episode or scroll down to read the blog post ↓
Key Points:
03:19 Comparing leadership training and coaching
08:34 When to use leadership training
09:36 When to use leadership coaching
11:17 Offering a combination of both leadership training and coaching
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Should You Use Leadership Training or Leadership Coaching in Your Nonprofit?
Most of us have probably attended a training. You may have good memories of that training. You may have had bad experiences with training. But when I say training, something probably comes to mind.
What about coaching? When I say coaching, what comes to mind?
If you've had good leadership coaching experiences, you might think of that one-on-one relationship where you are prompted to reflect on past experiences or think deeply about your own feelings or reactions to a particular situation that happened. And to potentially imagine how you might navigate a situation in the future.
If you haven't experienced leadership coaching, you may be thinking of a sports team and how you see the coach teaching, guiding, and celebrating members of the team.
Now, depending on your experiences with training or coaching, you might have a preference for one over the other. But should we make organizational decisions based on our preferences?
I'd argue no.
Which is why I wanted to spend a little bit of time thinking about leadership training versus leadership coaching. They are both common solutions that a nonprofit might need or might request.
When do you use leadership training?
When do you use leadership coaching?
Leadership training and leadership coaching are both intended to build skills and develop your leaders. How do you know then, which one is the right solution for your nonprofit?
That’s what we’re covering in this blog post:
When to use leadership training and when to use leadership coaching
Identifying your organization’s needs to identify the correct leadership training solution
Let's start by comparing leadership training and coaching.
1) Comparing Leadership Training and Leadership Coaching
Building Pre-defined Skills vs. Individualized Skills
Typically, leadership training is about building specific leadership skills in everyone who attends that training. The skills are pre-defined and they've been set through the instructional design process to create that leadership training.
So there's been a needs assessment to identify what skills are going to be needed for the leaders who attend that leadership training. Those skills have been strategically identified, they typically map to the organization's strategies, and they apply to everyone who might attend that training.
Leadership coaching is also about building skills, but it's about building the skills that are important to the individual coachee.
So the person being coached has the ‘control’ over what they focus on. The coach then just supports them in building those skills. So the skills that are being developed are individually identified, and the skills may only apply to that particular leader.
If you have two people in leadership coaching, they might be working on completely different things.
So in leadership training, the skills are predefined. They apply to everyone. With leadership coaching, it's a little more individualized.
Group vs. Individual Setting
Leadership Training is typically offered in a group setting. Groups may come together in person, or they might come together virtually. But generally speaking, most leadership training is offered in a group setting.
There's a lot of facilitated dialogue and discussion with time for individual reflection. But again, it's focused on the group.
Leadership coaching is often offered in a one-on-one setting. You might have group leadership coaching, but generally, most leadership coaching is offered in a one-on-one setting.
So the coach and the coachee are going to meet one-on-one for a period of time, for example, six months. During those six months, there is facilitated dialogue and discussion as well as reflection.
So just like there's dialogue, discussion, and reflection in that group setting leadership training, you're going to have that in a leadership coaching setting as well. But that dialogue, discussion, and reflection is one-on-one.
Using Common Scenarios vs. Personalized Scenarios
Typically, leadership training will use common scenarios to help learners learn. So in a leadership training, you want to make things as close to real life as possible. And that's because you want the learner, the leader that's attending that leadership training, to be able to apply what they're learning on the job in real life.
Because it's a group setting, what you're often going to see is the use of common scenarios, things that people will most likely experience as a leader. That's intended to help them learn and practice those skills so that they're able to apply those skills in the real-life scenarios they face.
With leadership coaching, you're actually able to use real-time scenarios. So as the leader is experiencing something, they're able to talk through that real-life, real-time scenario with their coach, and think about how they're going to apply what they're learning in that process.
2) When to Use Leadership Training and When to Use Leadership Coaching
So as you can see, there are some similarities and some differences between leadership training and leadership coaching. So how do you decide when to use which solution?
Both can be used to adapt behavior, both can be used to develop new skills and both can be used to improve performance. So they're both good options.
Here's what I would recommend.
If you need to adapt behavior or develop new skills, at scale, go with leadership training.
So this could mean that you need to develop a large number of leaders or that you need to develop leaders over a longer period of time. So you want to set something up that can operate and be running for years to come.
Here's an example of that: You need to develop 100 emerging leaders over the next three years. You have a goal. In this case, a leadership training program may be your best bet. It would be more difficult and it would cost more to reach those 100 emerging leaders in a coaching setting.
If you need to adapt behavior or develop new skills at the individual level, you might go with leadership coaching.
So this could occur when you have staff stepping into new leadership roles. Or it could occur when you have a leader who's grappling with a challenging situation like introducing a change to the organization. It would be hard to do this in a group setting.
So again, if it's something that you need to do at scale, leadership training is often the path that you'll want to take. If it's something that you need to develop at the individual level, leadership coaching is often the path that you'll want to take.
Now, I will add that sometimes it's not an either-or decision. Sometimes the best thing you can do is offer both a group training program with one-on-one coaching support. Then your leaders benefit from both the formal structure of the group training, which has been aligned to your organization strategies, and the individualization of coaching.
3) Identifying Your Organization’s Needs to Determine the Correct Leadership Development Solution
Here's the thing. I've seen organizations do all of these options well.
I've seen them offer amazing leadership training programs.
I've seen them offer really intentional one-on-one coaching programs.
And I've seen them combine leadership training and coaching to meet their intended outcomes.
It's about identifying what works for you, and your particular needs.
So take the time to assess those needs.
Who is it that you need to develop and why?
What do you need them to do?
When do you need that behavior to change?
What might prevent them from making that change?
Take the time to assess the needs, and then identify the solution that will best meet those needs.
To hear the full conversation I had on the Learning for Good Podcast, scroll all the way up and tune into episode 52.
The Nonprofit Learning and Development Collective
Do you wish you could connect with other nonprofit learning and development leaders?
I know what it feels like to want someone to bounce ideas off of and to learn from, someone who really understands you and your work. Imagine if you could have a simple way to meet people in the field, ask questions, and share information.
That's why I created the Nonprofit Learning and Development Collective – so nonprofit L&D, talent management, and DEI leaders can connect with each other quickly and easily in a virtual space.
When you join this community, you will walk away with a new, diverse, and powerful network – and a sounding board for your staff development needs.
So if you're ready to exchange ideas and collaborate with your peers, come join the Nonprofit L&D Collective.
