Teachable moments...

Life is full of teachable moments, if this year has taught us anything it is that we can be so busy in the hustle of task orientation that we fail to recognise when these moments appear. As a parent presented with the opportunity to help tie a shoe, a leader with the chance to enable a behaviour or skill, we can miss these moments if we are not attuned to the fact that they are always there. Thinking about your organisation’s leaders and how you enable and value your leaders time, you may recognise a focus on task orientation and getting to milestones and outcomes and miss the opportunity genuinely grow and develop people along the way. When you are asked for help or to intervene in a situation, embrace the pause, and ask yourself if this is a teachable moment? Will your employee grow from recognising this as a teachable moment? Embrace this, slow it down and change your style. Giving your time and support in a teachable moment will build trust and engagement. The art of leadership is getting this right, teachable moments are gold to you, your team and your business. Consider the time it takes to embrace a teachable moment against the engagement and support your employee needs in that moment. Remember the saying about teaching a man to fish – this sums this up perfectly however knowing when someone is starving and needs a good feed and when they have the capacity to concentrate on taking on a new task is imperative to supportive and effective coaching and leadership.

We are all teachers given the right circumstances