Huge Career Hack: Be Coachable
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Today I’m sharing a little hack that is a huge level up for your work and personal life. Adopting this mindset and trait will make a huge impact on your entire career: be coachable.
Massively important trait to be a more valuable coworker, team member, or leader. It’s about growth mindset, flexibility, and being open and willing to learn from others.
Dear companies, this is a must for anyone you'd consider promoting into a leadership position.
“Dear companies, this is a must for anyone you'd consider promoting into a leadership position.”
Being coachable
It embodies a willingness to learn, adapt, and to be open and receptive to feedback.
Whether you're learning a new job or process, or somebody is giving you feedback, being coachable is about the way you receive that information. When someone gives you feedback around something you can improve on, are you someone who sees that as an attack or personal failure, or are you able to welcome that feedback and learn from it?
Operating from a space that welcomes the chance to learn—is you being coachable.
It’s more than just learning technical info and systems.
The willingness to learn in the workplace isn’t limited to learning systems and processes; it's also about learning people.
“The trait of being coachable also applies to learning about other people and how to communicate and interact with them.”
The trait of being coachable also applies to learning about how to communicate and interact with others. As an example, you might be a pretty great listener, but maybe you work with someone that doesn’t see you as a great listener. That is an opportunity to learn that person and how to more effectively engage with them to improve their experience with you (which will improve your experience with them).
If I have somebody on my team who I know is an introvert who needs a little more space or time to process things, it’s my job as a leader to be aware of that and adapt as a result. In this case, being coachable means I’m willing to ‘learn’ that person and develop my understanding of them and how to work with them in a way that’s better for both of us.
Extremely relevant for DEI work and conversations.
This applies to a lot of different aspects and elements of life, another example that’s extremely relevant to workplaces is through a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens. Being coachable means having a mindset of being okay to learn as you go and choosing intentionally to evolve and make changes to your language and behavior as you learn new things.
The next time you learn that some terms or language that you use is outdated or problematic, are you the kind of person who’s going to be defensive or dismissive? Or are you going to allow yourself to learn and grow and embrace a new way of thinking and speaking? Be the latter, it’s as simple as “Oh, I just learned something new.”
Being coachable impacts every aspect of your life.
There are so many different applications of this in life and your overall journey as a human being, at work, and in all your relationships. Choose to be someone who doesn’t already know everything, who's open to feedback; wants to learn, is willing to change, and who doesn't put their ego before their education.
Being someone who’s coachable makes you a way more valuable part of any team—whether as a leader, coworker, friend, or in a romantic relationship. It’s such an easy thing to adopt and embody if you want to. And it’s worth it to your career and the better relationships you’ll build as a result.
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This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop. Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop