Characteristics of an
Effective Coach
Coaching is a key tool for developing your people to their full potential.
A great coach helps their team discover and develop solutions.
Coaching is about performance and an effective coach needs to develop a variety of skills.
Before we look at the skills a coach needs, let’s take a look at some of the traits, or characteristics, of an effective coach.
Effective coaching depends on a number of elements, not the least of which is effective communication, so as well as having a positive attitude towards your team members you need to not be easily annoyed or get angry.
To make a difference and help your people to realise their full potential – and after all that’s the primary purpose of coaching – a great coach needs to be:
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Empathetic
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Credible
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A good listener
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A good observer
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Trusting and trustworthy
amongst other things.
Managers who coach are advocates of their people, give praise when its due and deal with poor performance in a straightforward way.
They treat each team member as an individual.
Coaching in business is not unlike coaching in other walks of life. Sports, personal, life, business and other coaches all have the same set of characteristics.
How do you stack up in terms of what makes a successful coach?
Use the worksheet and list what you believe are the top ten coaching qualities – what you think are the most important characteristics of an effective coach. And then give yourself a score out of 10 for each of them. Consider printing out copies of the worksheet and asking your team members to do the same.
Take action now:
