Monthly Best Praxis: Develops and Coaches Others
Welcome to Monthly Best Praxis, Talent Praxis's newsletter dedicated to sharing actionable insights and proven strategies for leadership development. Each month, we dive into key topics and competencies that help leaders drive performance, align teams, and create lasting impact. In this issue, we explore how adapting your approach to the situation is essential for effective leadership.
Developing others is one of the most important ways leaders strengthen individual performance, team capability, and long-term organizational success. When leaders intentionally invest in growth, they help team members build new skills, deepen self-awareness, take on greater responsibilities, and connect their career aspirations with meaningful organizational opportunities.
Develops and Coaches Others is the competency of actively investing in team members' growth through guidance, mentorship, and opportunities that enhance self-awareness and align individual career aspirations with organizational goals.
Effective development is continuous and integrated into everyday work. Leaders teach new skills, share guidance and perspective, create opportunities to practice, provide feedback, and use coaching to help team members reflect and generate new insights. The most effective approach depends on what the individual is trying to learn, the support they need, and where they are in the development process.
Examples of Skills Supporting:
Active Listening – The ability to understand a team member’s goals, current knowledge, challenges, and perspectives before determining what support will be most useful.
Instruction – The ability to explain concepts, demonstrate processes, organize information, and help others build new skills and understanding.
Open Questions – The ability to ask thoughtful, open-ended questions that deepen reflection, connect past experiences with new situations, and help others generate insights and solutions.
Examples of Attributes Supporting:
Curious – Genuinely interested in understanding how others think, what they know, and where they want to grow.
Patient – Willing to give others the time and space required to learn, practice, reflect, and develop confidence.
Encouraging – Reinforces progress, supports experimentation, and helps others remain engaged throughout the development process.
Examples of Experiences Supporting:
Teaching New Skills or Processes – Experience explaining expectations, demonstrating techniques, and supporting others as they apply new knowledge.
Mentoring and Supporting Career Development – Experience sharing perspective, providing guidance, and helping others connect career aspirations with meaningful opportunities.
Facilitating Learning and Problem-Solving – Experience helping others apply existing knowledge, consider different perspectives, and develop new approaches to challenges.
Supporting Productive and Generative Learning
Leaders play an important role in helping team members build existing knowledge and skills while also developing their ability to think through new and complex challenges.
Productive learning focuses on learning what is already known. Leaders support productive learning by teaching new skills, clarifying expectations, sharing resources and perspectives, demonstrating processes, and creating opportunities for practice.
Generative learning focuses on creating new understanding when the answer is not yet known. Leaders can use coaching behaviors to help team members connect previous knowledge and experiences, consider different perspectives, and generate new insights or solutions.
Effective leaders develop others through both approaches. They recognize what the individual already knows, where they are in the learning process, and what type of support will help them continue growing.
Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Support Development
Bloom’s Taxonomy can help leaders recognize where someone is in the learning process and determine what support may help them progress.
Remember – Recall facts, information, or basic concepts.
Understand – Explain ideas and demonstrate comprehension.
Apply – Use knowledge or skills in new situations.
Analyze – Examine information, identify relationships, and make connections.
Evaluate – Assess options and make informed judgments.
Create – Develop new ideas, solutions, or approaches.
Leaders can use these stages to determine how to support continued development. A team member learning something new may need information, examples, instruction, and opportunities to practice. As their knowledge and capability grow, leaders can use more complex assignments and open questions to help them analyze situations, evaluate options, and create new solutions.
The goal is not to move through every stage as quickly as possible. It is to recognize where someone is today and provide the experience and support that helps them continue developing.
Reflective Prompts
Assessing Frequency and Intentionality
How often do you create opportunities to discuss team members’ strengths, development needs, and career aspirations?
How often do you assess what a team member already knows and what support would help them continue developing?
How often do you intentionally create opportunities for team members to learn, practice, and apply new skills through their everyday work?
Evaluating Effectiveness
How often do team members demonstrate increased knowledge, skills, or self-awareness as a result of the development support you provide?
How often do your coaching conversations help team members generate new insights, explore different perspectives, or identify their own solutions?
How often do team members take greater ownership and responsibility as their capabilities develop?
Reflection on Growth and Next Steps
How often do you reflect on whether you are providing the right balance of instruction, guidance, experience, and coaching?
How often do you seek feedback on how effectively you support the growth and development of others?
How often do you intentionally strengthen your own active listening, instruction, and open-questioning skills?
Practical Steps for Leaders to Develop This Competency
Understand individual goals and development needs. Create regular opportunities to discuss team members’ strengths, interests, career aspirations, current capabilities, and opportunities for growth.
Assess the learning need. Consider what the individual already knows, where they are in the learning process, and what knowledge, skills, experiences, or insights would help them progress.
Choose the appropriate development approach. Provide instruction, guidance, resources, and examples when building existing knowledge and skills. Use open questions and reflection when helping team members generate new understanding and solutions.
Connect development with meaningful experience. Create opportunities for team members to practice new skills, take on greater responsibilities, solve problems, and contribute to organizational priorities.
Reflect on learning and progress. Follow up on development experiences to discuss what the team member learned, how they applied it, what results they achieved, and what support or opportunity would help them continue growing.
Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them
Providing development without understanding individual goals
Leaders may focus on the skills they want team members to build without understanding their strengths, interests, or career aspirations.
Overcome it: Create regular opportunities to discuss individual goals and development needs. Look for alignment between what the individual wants to develop and the capabilities and opportunities the organization needs.
Providing answers instead of creating opportunities to learn
Leaders often solve problems for team members because it feels faster or more helpful in the moment.
Overcome it: Consider what the individual already knows and what they could learn through the experience. Provide necessary information and guidance while creating space for them to apply knowledge, make decisions, and build greater independence.
Coaching when someone needs instruction or guidance
Leaders may ask open questions when a team member lacks the knowledge, skills, or clarity needed to move forward.
Overcome it: Assess where the individual is in the learning process. When there is established information, a clear process, or a new skill to learn, provide instruction, resources, examples, and opportunities to practice.
Treating development as a one-time event
Learning often has limited impact when it is disconnected from everyday work and ongoing reinforcement.
Overcome it: Integrate development into responsibilities, projects, feedback, mentoring, coaching, and opportunities for continued practice. Create regular opportunities to reflect on progress and identify the next development priority.
Creating development plans without meaningful application
Leaders may discuss development goals without providing opportunities to build or demonstrate the relevant capability.
Overcome it: Connect development priorities with real assignments, responsibilities, relationships, or challenges where team members can practice, receive feedback, and apply what they are learning.
Connecting to Other Leadership Competencies
Developing and coaching others reinforces several other leadership and management competencies. It builds on Adapts Approach to the Situation by requiring leaders to determine what type and level of development support each individual needs. It strengthens Delegates Effectively by connecting meaningful responsibilities with opportunities to build capability and relies on Delivers and Receives Impactful Feedback to increase self-awareness and reinforce learning. It also supports Aligns Individual and Company Goals by connecting career aspirations and development priorities with meaningful organizational opportunities.
Apply Your Learnings
Identify one team member whose growth you want to support more intentionally.
Discuss their strengths, development needs, career aspirations, and current priorities.
Identify where they are in the learning process and determine what type of support would help them progress.
Create one meaningful opportunity to learn, practice, solve a problem, or take on greater responsibility.
Follow up to discuss what they learned, how they applied it, and what the next stage of development should be.
Explore More Resources
Coaching as a Manager and Leader Explore practical techniques for intentionally adopting the coach position, defining boundaries, listening actively, asking powerful open questions, shifting perspectives, and using the GROW coaching framework.
Productive vs. Generative Learning Explore the distinction between helping people learn and apply existing knowledge and helping them generate new insights when navigating unfamiliar opportunities and challenges.
Bloom’s Taxonomy Use the progression from remembering and understanding through applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating to recognize where team members are in the learning process and determine how to support continued development.
Developing Continuous Improvement Skills Explore how continuous capability building connects learning with practice, mentoring, knowledge sharing, and organizational priorities to create sustainable development.
ICF Core Competencies Review recognized coaching practices that include maintaining a coaching mindset, listening actively, evoking awareness, and facilitating growth.
About Talent Praxis
Cultivating Leadership Impact
Our work at Talent Praxis focuses on helping senior leaders identify the strategic behaviors that drive success, so they can lead with greater confidence, clarity, and impact. We partner with organizations to design custom leadership development programs that integrate executive coaching, assessments, and training, delivering measurable results and elevating leadership effectiveness.
Why custom leadership development programs?
Leaders define the direction and culture of an organization. Leadership development programs result in:
Increased Productivity and Performance
Higher Employee Engagement and Retention
Improved Financial Performance
As your company and market evolve, so must your leadership. Our custom leadership development programs are designed to meet your organization’s unique needs, empowering leaders with the skills to drive engagement, foster success, and deliver measurable results.
