14
HR
West
®
C
oaching drives results. Having spent
all my adult life (and half of my teenage
years) involved in coaching of one sort or
another, I should be more specific: good coaching
drives results. When coaching is not done well, you
don’t just get the same results, you actually risk
getting worse results. There are seven essential
behaviors, that in my experience, leaders can do that
will allow them to be great coaches.
THE
7 ESSENTIAL
COACHING BEHAVIORS:
1. Believe in performers’ greatness
2. Act as a mirror
3. Create a context of possibility
4. Get clear about responsibilities
5. Create a safe environment
6. Help bring focus
7. Become comfortable with uncertainty
Today coaching is recognized as the #1 talent
management best practice, and is now as regularly
practiced in the workplace as it has always been in
sports and music. Leaders who consistently implement
these seven essential coaching behaviors will begin
to have better coaching conversations, and make a
meaningful difference in business. In this article, we
will define and explore each of these behaviors and
show how every leader can become a stronger coach
through the implementation of each one.
1//
BELIEVE IN
PERFORMERS’ GREATNESS
Effective coaches believe that their coachees have
untapped greatness within them; their intention is
to free up that greatness. There is much research
showing that what we believe about the people we
coach is a key driver of their performance—it’s often
called the Pygmalion Effect 1. What a coach pays
attention to creates their beliefs and what a coach
believes, drives and filters what they pay attention to.
These create what are called “self-reinforcing loops”.
So if the coach believes their coachee has talent, they
are more likely to bring it out and vice versa. It’s a
statement of the obvious, but if we don’t believe that
our coachee has untapped greatness, why would we
waste both their and our time trying to coach them?
2//
ACT AS A MIRROR
When we comb our hair in the morning, we look in
a mirror in order to have an accurate perception of
what we are doing. In order to know whether we
have an accurate perception of our own thinking
and/or behavior, we need a mirror. Great coaches
serve as a mirror for the coachee by providing
objectivity to help them more accurately observe
their own thinking and behavior. They use words
and phrases such as, “My perception is…,” or
“How it shows up to me is…”. The coachee is then
better able to know whether what they think they
are doing is what they are actually doing.
3//
CREATE A CONTEXT
OF POSSIBILITY
One person’s “noise” is another person’s
inspirational music. Art that looks inspirational to
one person, looks “blah” to someone else. Cricket
arouses the passion of sports fans in countries
such as England, India, and Pakistan and bores
Americans to death. People act based upon how
the world shows up to them, in other words, their
beliefs about the world.
Great coaches come from a mindset of possibility
which helps coachees see the world differently.
Coachees can begin to think of options beyond
the limitations their beliefs and assumptions have
created. The coach brings a set of beliefs and
assumptions that allows for a dialogue in which the
coachee is able to see more possibilities than before.
4//
GET CLEAR ABOUT
RESPONSIBILITIES
One thing that separates great coaches from other
leaders is that great coaches are clear that their
role is not to be the “expert” giving answers to the
coachee. They recognize that providing solutions
(giving advice), however well intended, can have a
long-term consequence—it can disable the coachee
over the long term. Unintentionally, it can create
reliance on the coach’s expertise and a tendency for
the coachee to avoid taking ownership and finding
By Keynote Speaker, Alan Fine
Essential
Behaviors
for Better Coaching Conversations
