The Effects of Team Leader Coaching on Team Members: An Action Research Project at DHL Thailand

All organizations have their individual strengths and weaknesses. Keeping up with technology and finding an appropriate strategic focus is important, but the driving force to success lies with the engagement of employees. This study aimed to determine the impact of team leaders who used coaching skills with their team members, at DHL Thailand’s Supply Chain Division. The challenge for DHL Thailand is to develop its team leaders and members to meet the corporate vision and mission through opportunities for enhanced relations between team members and leaders, and engagement in work. The research examined how development of team leaders’ coaching skills, and subsequent coaching of team members, affected the dimensions of the team leader/team member relationship as measured through the dimensions of the Perceived Quality of the Coaching Relationship (PQCR), a tool which measures a team member’s perceptions on dimensions of the relationship that team members create and share with their team leader. Additionally, the Gallup Q12 survey was given to team members to measure changes in team member engagement before and after the intervention. While the PQCR measures the dimensions of the coaching relationship, the Gallup Q12 provides data regarding changes in team member engagement. The research findings indicated that the ODI had an impact on the team leader and team member relations and on employee engagement. This conclusion was supported by both quantitative and qualitative evidence. It is proposed that team leaders coaching of team members may enhance the team leader/team member relationship and the level of engagement of team members. Recommendations for further study include investigating aspects of the development of the coaching skills of team leaders, the frequency of use of these skills with their team members, and exploration of other types of interventions which could affect employee engagement, as well as reinforcing the quantitative results of this study by conducting interviews with participants regarding topics related to attitudes of employee engagement