There is a lot of talk nowadays about coaching, a discipline that is applied both in the personal field and in the world of business and sports. This methodology, which facilitates learning and promotes cognitive, emotional and behavioral changes, helps individuals and groups of individuals to enhance their development and transform, generating changes in perspective, generating commitment and responsibility and increasing motivation.
Although there are many people who are dedicated to coaching, there are differences in the quality of the service they offer. The difference between being a good coach and a bad coach lies in a series of competencies that you can find summarized in the following lines. These competencies They can be knowledge, personality traits, motives, attitudes or skills
What skills should a good coach have?
1. Empathy
The coach is a professional who, in order to do his job well, must understand the client’s needs. For this reason, it is necessary that you be empathetic with him and understand his situation in order to direct the work sessions. The coachee (coach’s client) is the one who reflects on his situation to empower himself in the face of change. The coach is a facilitator and a gentle facilitator who accompanies the client in a coach-coachee relationship, generating understanding and trust.
It is essential that coaching professionals have exhaustive training, which starts with self-knowledge, and which has no end, not only to know how to treat the coachee, but also to know the methodologies available to them to do their job well. In Spain there are excellent degrees related to this discipline that provide both theoretical and practical knowledge.
One of the most notable training courses is the Executive Coaching Certification Program of the European School of Coaching, which allows you to obtain the Executive Coach title from the same academic institution and accreditation as an Accredited Coach Training Program by the International Coach Federation.
Participants acquire fundamental skills and tools for the work of a professional coach, and this program emphasizes everything related to individual support, leadership training and team management. It is indicated for all types of leaders and team managers as well as people in general who wish to acquire the skills and abilities necessary to practice as professional coaches.
For more information, you can contact the EEC through the details available at this link.
3. Active listening
There is a difference between hearing and listening, because listening refers to being attentive to what the interlocutor is transmitting to us. The coach must not only listen to the coachee’s verbal language, but must be able to interpret the coachee’s non-verbal language to not only stay with the words but to know what emotions his client is transmitting. Listening is being open so that the other’s words change you listening is generating that space for transformation.
Trust between the coach and the coachee and good results are achieved thanks to efficient communication between them. Powerful questions, paraphrasing, summarizing the coachee’s words collating and ensuring that what is understood is what is meant is an essential task of the coach.
5. Motivation for client reflection
When a coach makes the client reflect, when he inquires about his motivation, the client can broaden his view of himself, his actions, his beliefs and his possibilities of action. Distinguish between commitment and obligation It is crucial to know where the motivation is
5. Ethical responsibility
A coach must understand the ethics and professional standards of coaching, as well as put into practice the profession’s code of ethics. In this sense, it is not only valid to know these rules, but they must be applied in the day-to-day of your professional practice.
6. Coherence
To build trust, the coach must to be consistent in everything you say and communicate to the client In the European School of Coaching (EEC), they talk about living the distinctions of coaching, for example, how the coach must not only know what they are (responsibility, love or learning) but actually “be” these distinctions and live them.
7. Patience
One of the keys when carrying out coaching sessions is patience, as there may be deep questions on the part of the coachee and they may come to contact their deepest emotions that require time. The coach’s patience is in respect the silences and also the depth of the work that the client wants to do and how far they want to take what they are seeing. The coaching process is alive and is co-created between coach-coachee but the absolute protagonist is the client.
Coaches are personal development professionals and not psychologists who offer psychological therapy (except for some who are also clinical psychologists). Therefore, their objective is not to treat their clients when they suffer from any emotional or relational problems or disorder, and their responsibility is to refer them to other experts if necessary.
9. Establish trust and intimacy with the client
Generating trust with the coachee is the first necessary step for the coaching process to be successful, and in reality It is almost an art, which starts with vulnerability and balance in the relationship “The coach is not a mentor, he is not above in any way, the coach is an equal who cannot know what the correct decisions are for each person. The coach only helps you discover new perspectives, new options and new actions to achieve the challenge declared by the client,” they say in EEC.
