5 Tips to Pull Off the Role of Player-Coach
More firms are asking employees to both manage teams and be a colleague. Here’s how to handle the dual role.
The proposal for one client needs a rewrite before being submitted. Another client is asking for help dealing with a PR crisis. At the same time, senior leaders of the firm are holding a management meeting that can’t be missed. And, oh yeah, performance reviews are set to kick off this week.
Welcome to the life of the player-coach. As firms eliminate managers and flatten org charts, they are tasking experienced colleagues with managing team members while simultaneously contributing actively. The goal is to leverage AI to drive productivity and efficiency while giving teams a we’re-all-in-this-together feel amidst disruption, says Jenna Young, a senior partner in the culture, change, and communications practice at Korn Ferry.
But experts say serving as a player-coach is a tricky situation that can easily lead to overwork for people in the role, lack of development for team members reporting to them, and lower performance for the firm overall. Korn Ferry senior client partner Mark Royal says that firms often struggle to provide the support and training needed for people to succeed as player coaches. So what should workers do?
Determine the ultimate goal.
“Clear expectations of what the organization wants from you and what you want from the team are critical,” says Korn Ferry Advance career coach Stacey Perkins. Are you being asked to be a player-coach because the organization wants to maximize your individual output? Or is the expectation for you to develop talent and provide broader leadership to the team? Is the role a temporary condition or a permanent shift in the workforce? Understanding the organization’s goals is key to prioritizing initiatives and communicating your approach to the role, says Perkins.
Master the art of shifting gears.
The biggest mistake player-coaches make, says Royal, is trying to serve in both capacities at once. That quickly leads to burnout and mediocre performance. “Succeeding in the role means knowing when to shift effectively between contribution and leadership,” says Royal, “and being able to do it seamlessly depending on what the situation requires.”
Contribute deliberately.
One of the pitfalls of the player-coach model is that it tends to turn people into anxious micromanagers. “Player-coaches often get overwhelmed with trying to stay involved in everything,” says Royal. Instead, he advises being deliberate about when you choose to get involved. “Focus on the highest-leverage problems, highest-risk decisions, or areas where your expertise can add disproportionate value,” Royal says.
Become a promoter.
Young says that one of the hardest pivots to make for any manager is going from promoting themselves and their work to promoting that of the team. It’s even harder for a player-coach. The goal of the player-coach model, however, is not to make the manager indispensable but to make the team stronger and more self-sufficient. “Player-coaches have to shift their mindset from ‘look at me’ to ‘look at them,’” says Young.
Grow yourself out of the role.
Budget cutting, in conjunction with AI, is driving the player-coach trend, says Paul Dinan, a senior client partner in the Global Technology practice at Korn Ferry. "It’s really a symptom of the deeper redesign of organizations through an AI-first lens,” says Dinan. As such, as AI becomes more embedded into organizations, spurring changes in team and role designs, the most successful player-coaches will grow themselves or their teams out of the role. Royal agrees, noting that the player-coach model works best with smaller, more experienced teams but gets harder to sustain as firms grow and coordination becomes more complex.
Learn more about Korn Ferry’s Leadership and Professional Development capabilities.
