Coaching dei Leader

In the mining industry I did lot of coaching for a living as it’s part of the job of supervising people. When I left mining, I was quite happy just to have Rocky the dog to manage, but then came an offer to serve as a professional safety coach for leaders. 

While teaching safety leadership, I’m in a classroom with leaders; coaching leaders, I get to see them in their own environment as well as build a personal relationship with each leader, the best part of coaching.  Being able to go visit their sites and see their work, one-on-one with them, is pretty special.

Quite honestly, the leaders I work with as a coach are a lot like me:  people who actually enjoy their work, are proud of what they manage or have built, and very willing to share their knowledge. The leaders we deal with are usually pretty darn good leaders, which makes it exciting to help them even more.

Coaching in the role of the manager and serving as a professional coach might not look all that different: coaching is coaching and the principles and process are the same, but there is one thing that is entirely different when you’re coaching, the relationship requires a lot of trust.

Coaching is a delicate relationship, and if you can’t establish that pretty quickly, the leader won’t get nearly as much from the process as they would if they let their guard down. That’s something that people have to recognize early on in a coaching process.

When you’re doing the coaching as their supervisor, that’s always a problem, and if you can’t maintain confidentiality when you’re serving as the professional coach, you face the same problem.

I’ve found the easiest way for me personally to get them to let their guard down is to talk about who they are. I have a little bit of an advantage as I do enjoy learning about the people. Having them to tell me a little bit about who they are, what they have going on outside of work, what they have going on at site, or whatever mutual interest that we have, can sure help.

At  the end of the day, that’s probably the best thing you can do to open the door on why they’re doing what they’re doing.

The Coaching Process

When I’m coaching a leader, my focus is on managing safety performance. The starting point is our managing safety performance “Core Fourteen” safety leadership tools. At the end of the day, these coaching principles attach to everything and form the basis for the coaching.

No matter where I am, I ask questions to get right into their business, getting them talking about what’s going on from a production pressure standpoint, what’s broken today, what they’re going to work on next week, what are the plans, such as a big turnaround they have coming up in July.

The other really neat thing that I get to do is learn about specific industrial businesses. If I go back into the mining environment, there’s still stuff to learn, but if I’m in a chemical plant, there’s a lot to learn.  Still, at end of the day, it turns out that no matter what the business, leaders are always dealing with the same things:  trying to figure out how to produce safely when people are exposed to hazards.

When I first get out to the site, the leaders will look at me as if to ask “So, what do we do?” We’ll go to their office to get settled in, but not for long, as I want to go out and see what they are managing: “I didn’t show up here at your facility to sit in this office. You and I can talk on the phone if we need to. But let’s go out and just start interacting with people.”

In the classroom, we teach that as Managing By Walking Around. MBWA is the core of my coaching process. There are always things to be seen and dealt with: sometimes I ask questions; sometimes I observe the leader in action and later give them feedback and coaching; sometimes I just stick my nose in their business. 

That’s what modeling the behavior looks like in practice. 

Last month, I was out on location, just me and a maintenance supervisor with a good mechanical background, doing MBWA. The supervisor was getting a feel for who I was; frankly, he was a bit reluctant about the process. We walked around a CAT rubber tire dozer, and I noticed they had a ladder tied off, not allowing for proper machine dismount.

So, I ask: “Why would they tie this off? This is to get off the machine safely.” 

The supervisor turns, and takes a closer look: “Man, that’s a good one. How do you see this stuff? “
I replied: “You’ve got to look for it.”

It wasn’t a magical moment for me, but for that supervisor, it was like “Okay, you really do have the knowledge and an eye for it,.” And you could really feel that guy kind of go “Okay, this guy is here for the right reason. He actually does want to help this place get better.”

But then you got to do something to coach him up about the situation.

Learning How To Coach

Coaching might start with a performance or self evaluation – what someone needs to do better or different – but once the skill in question has been identified, coaching is all about doing: the skill set. That’s what someone is being coached on: what to do, how to do it. For leaders, the doing takes place on the job, that’s where most of my coaching takes place. 

As a parent, I’ve coached lots of kids playing sports like baseball and football: there the skill sets can be basics like blocking, tackling, throwing and catching, or they can be advanced skills like hitting the cut-off man or making a fair catch. There’s a right way to do those things, and the same thing applies to the practice of leadership.

Of course, when you’re out on the job with a leader, the process is very unscripted: you don’t know what’s going to happen next. The coaching process is often spontaneous, un-rehearsed and intuitive. So, you have to be able to quickly draw on your experience, and be able to make your point without a lot of preparation time. 

That’s never been much of a problem for me.

On the other hand, when I’m coaching safety leaders, the fundamental skill sets are what we teach in our safety leadership class: the fourteen tools. How well they are put into practice – if at all – isn’t that hard to observe. If the leader is spending all their time in the office, on the computer, and in meetings, Managing By Walking Around will be missing in action. As the coach, when we go out and perform MBWA, it’s easy for me to evaluate the safety observation skills of the leader I’m coaching. The walk with that front line leader is the perfect example. 

Putting Coaching Into Practice

In sports, coaching and practice are two essential ingredients for success. Coaching safety leaders really isn’t any different. Front line leaders are promoted because they’re good at what they do. Moving into a role where they are responsible for leading and managing others requires a different set of skills. Nobody’s good at everything, and even the good leaders can always be better leaders. 

When I was responsible for managing mining operations, I spent a lot of time coaching my supervisors and their managers. I saw that as an important part of my job; besides, it was always fun to get out of the office and away from the meetings, and interreact directly with people where work was being done.

That’s where the coaching process actually begins: with observation. Every good coach knows that, and the best coaches have a keen eye for performance: noticing the big things and the little things, like that step that was tied off. 

Good coaches give feedback and good advice that helps someone perform better. That step is a lot different than a performance evaluation, where the leader might tell a follower what they need to improve. Coaching involves teaching how to do something, well. 

Finally, being a good coach depends on knowing how to do something well.  If you’re going to coach your safety leaders – you really should – making sure you know what you’re talking about needs to be the first order of business. 

Gary Rivenes
May, 2026