Employers are constantly seeking ways to maximise their employees' potential. Both coaching and training aim to enhance skills, knowledge, and performance, while also fostering growth and development. However, there are significant differences between the two. What are these differences? How do you determine when to coach and when to train? And how can these methods be best utilised to unlock your employees' full potential?
Linda Hardy isn’t only COO of Business Leader, she’s an Executive Mentor and Business Coach who has extensive experience in leadership and employee development, and offers valuable insights into how coaching and training can be leveraged to fully unlock employees' potential…
Q: What is coaching, and why is it a crucial tool for managers?
A: Coaching is a truly transformative experience. It is about clarifying, energising and transforming. And it’s about deep connection and focused conversation.
The key thing to remember is that coaching is centred around the individual receiving the coaching, not the coach. It is deeper and more transformative than training, which generally focuses on improving a skill. And there is an essence to coaching that requires absolute attention and being attuned to what is happening in the room.
I like to think of coaching as mobilising human energy. It happens in real time with dynamic human interactions where trust, connection and meaning are built quickly and to great effect. Through coaching, managers clarify what motivates and invigorates them and their teams, identify blockers, and then take action to transform relationships, culture and performance.
At Strengths Unleashed, we use coaching to support leaders and managers to mobilise people, focus effort and refresh teams to navigate change, overcome disruption and drive impact.
Q: What are the primary differences between coaching and training?
A: Training focuses on knowledge transfer, equipping individuals with specific skills or understanding. It's often transactional and led by content.
Coaching, on the other hand, is conversation based, involves attentive active listening, is outcome oriented, and is led by the person being coached. The model we use at Strengths Unleashed is energy-based, systemic and deeply personal. Using leading diagnostics tools, it gives people a chance to really see themselves through a new lens, uncovering what truly energises them, their people and their organisations.
Essentially, training fills capability gaps, while coaching shifts thinking, culture and energy. Training often asks: "What do you need to know?", but coaching answers questions like: "What is becoming clearer?"
Q: What are some common challenges teams face that can be addressed through coaching?
A: Teams often face energy drain from unclear roles, broken trust, or persistent blockers; disconnection from purpose or strategy; misalignment of strengths and responsibilities; and low collaboration and siloed working.
Coaching helps teams to identify the causes of these challenges, open the conversation and help them move towards clarity and purpose. Team coaching is truly powerful, the benefits can happen quickly and with continued self and team awareness the energy and focus is restored.
Q: In what scenarios would you recommend coaching over training, and vice versa?
A: You should choose coaching when:
Teams are navigating transformation, culture change or conflict.
There’s ambiguity, fatigue or a need for deeper behavioural change.
Leaders need to interpret data, surface insight and align human energy with strategy.
You should choose training when:
There is a specific, teachable knowledge or compliance gap.
Uniform skills need to be built, for example tech tools or process compliance.
In reality, we often integrate elements of both training and coaching. Coaching helps to provide clarity and unlocks energy, while training may support the need to acquire specific skills.
Q: How can managers assess whether an employee would benefit from coaching or training?
A: The key is making the right assessment - what does this person really need for themselves and for the organisation? It’s useful to have conversations with colleagues, gather independent data insights from questionnaires and, importantly, ask the person what it is they need.
We can do this through a collation of surveys that assesses the individual through three lenses: where their energy comes from, where their energy goes when seeking to make a big impact in their organisation, and the role in which they will be most energised. It is also useful to explore any knowledge gap, technical competence that can cause misalignment or a lack of clarity around role and responsibilities.
If it’s about how they show up and how they energise others, coaching is likely the path.
Q: How can managers integrate coaching into their daily interactions with employees?
A: The secret is to embed coaching into everyday activities rather than seeing development as separate from daily work. Managers help to energise their people by creating clarity about the agenda, asking insightful questions, and being patient to allow the person to respond.
We use a range of micro-rituals to support people and help them perform to their potential. Such tools include:
PO3 – This invites clarity on the purpose of a meeting, the objective (what we want to achieve), the outcome (how we know we have achieved it) and the outputs (agreement, decisions, actions)
EDBL – This invites reflection through four simple questions:
What was exceptional about this interaction?
What – if anything – was difficult?
What would be even better?
What can we learn?
This is energising leadership in action. It is not a separate task but is embedded in the way we work.
Q: What strategies are effective in helping managers develop their own coaching skills?
A: It is essential that managers really understand themselves, their mindset and their ways of working. They need to lead with their strengths to deliver outcomes and proactively reflect on how they perform, their actions and behaviours. Awareness of their ‘leadership shadow’ is critical to appreciate how they may be perceived.
It is essential to understand what energises you as a manager, and to look after your health and wellbeing so you can truly show up in the way you want to in your professional life.
As a manager, you need to focus on your development, read relevant leadership and organisational culture articles or listen to podcasts. It’s imperative to stay attuned to what’s happening around you. I am also a great advocate of having a mentor, someone who you can contact on a regular basis to seek advice or support.
Q: How do you measure the effectiveness of coaching or training on performance?
A: The best approach is to do a survey of performance and leadership effectiveness prior to the intervention and then again after the intervention. It is really useful to document the development plan at the outset, often setting really stretching goals that can be measured as the coaching programme unfolds.
The true test is usually in how the individual feels about life and work, you notice a shift in engagement, contribution and collaboration. The benefits for the person and the organisation can be truly transformational and life-giving.
If you are looking to hire a new professional for your team, or embark on a new career journey, get in touch with a specialist consultant today.
