Coaches are known to enable individuals maximise their personal and professional potential. But before being an enabler , it’s crucial to enable oneself with right behavioural skills as a coach.
Here are 10 key behaviours to becoming an effective coach:
1 Follow professional and ethical procedures
The first step to anything is making sure to follow the right path. In terms of coaching, one needs to understand coaching ethics and have the ability to apply them appropriately. Make sure to follow all the ICF Standards of Conduct and concede with the ICF Ethical guideline. Clearly communicate to the client the difference between coaching, consulting, psychotherapy, etc. And take active steps when you feel the client needs the help of another support professional.
2. Establish guidelines
Start by understanding what your client needs or wants to achieve through your coaching sessions. Then decide the coaching process and relationship (like logistics, fees, scheduling, etc.) concretely. Always make sure to ascertain if there is an effective match between your coaching style and the needs of the client. As a coach, it becomes your obligation to help the client in identifying goals, reconfirming, and measuring the success rate.
3. Construct a trustworthy environment
Being vulnerable with a coach is often a difficult process for many people, and the coach needs to understand this and make sure to build trust. Here are some steps to do the same:
- Start showing genuine concern for the client’s future and continually demonstrate personal integrity, honesty, and sincerity.
- Take active efforts in understanding the client’s perception, learning style, and well-being.
- Always be supportive of new behaviours and actions the client is trying to implement even if it involves risks and fear of failure.
- Never approach sensitive new areas without the client’s permission.
4. Have a well-balanced presence
Well, this one goes without saying. A coach needs to be fully present to create a conscious and spontaneous relationship with the client. While it’s essential to maintain guidelines, it’s not necessary to always have a strict personality and keep things to the point. A coach can make use of humour to make the client comfortable. The coach should be mindful of the energy shifts of the client and carefully explore viewpoints and new possibilities the client has to offer.
5. Be an active listener
Your primary focus should be attending to your client’s grievances, not making sure you complete your own agenda. Put efforts in actively hearing the client’s goals, concerns, values, and beliefs of what is possible and what is not. After listening, understand the essence of the client’s communication and lead your coaching in that direction rather than engaging in long descriptive stories.
6. Formulate powerful questions
Take a strategic approach to your questioning session. Make sure to engage the client in questions that evoke discovery, is insightful and challenges the client’s assumptions. Indulge in open-ended questions that create greater clarity, possibility, or new learning. Ask questions that lead the client towards their goals rather than asking questions that allow them to justify their previous behaviour.
7. Effective communication
While coaching is about partnering with the client on an exploration and helping them achieve their goals, it’s easy to fall in the loop of pointing out mistakes. But it is important for coaches to communicate effectively by using language that has a positive impact on the client. Clearly, articulate the message to the client and help them understand their lives from a different perspective. Make sure to strictly refrain from any sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. type of language and always be respectful.
8. Look beyond what the client says
Obviously, coaches cannot go and monitor the clients outside sessions, but it is essential to not rely on just what the client is saying. Every human has a habit of talking about themselves based on their own judgment and not what the reality is. As a coach, you should be able to integrate and accurately evaluate multiple sources of information which the client has to offer and invoke inquiry for greater understanding, awareness, and clarity.
9. Design achievable actions
Brainstorm and assist the client in defining actions that will enable them to demonstrate, practice, and deepen new learning. Make sure to help the client in systematically exploring specific concerns and opportunities that are central to their goals. It becomes your duty to instil in the client a “Do it now” attitude that will encourage and challenge them to achieve their goals. Keep in mind, every client has a different pace of learning, so be mindful of how much you’re pushing them.
10. Achieving Goals and accountability
You have made the client comfortable, there is trust, the sessions are improving, etc.; while these are important factors, the most important is the success rate. You need to create a plan with results that are attainable, measurable and have set deadlines. Additionally, as a coach, you need to design the best methods of accountability for your client. Get in the habit of noticing and reflecting your client’s progress and sharing it with them when the right time arrives.
While all clients have different needs, these steps will help you become an effective coach irrespective of the needs. Make sure to first understand your client before diving into goal-based results.
