Coaching Skills

The old way of being a boss is over.

No longer can the leader drop orders from a place of position, unless they are in the military.

Business is typically not life and death like it is for service members. Increasingly, businesses are finding that leadership with effective coaching skills is a more desired pathway to progress.

Employees no longer want to work just to keep their job. They want to work to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Great managers have the essential coaching skills to create belonging and influence motivation in their teams.

Read on to know what coaching skills are practiced by competent managers and leaders.

What Are Effective Coaching Skills?

Effective coaching skills are developed to help others achieve personal or professional goals. In a managerial or leadership role, effective coaching skills may support sustainable change to behaviors or ways of thinking while also facilitating learning and development.

Unlike the skills used in more clinically oriented helping professionals, such as psychotherapy, there is more subjectivity surrounding what constitutes ‘effective’ skills in the realm of coaching. In particular, the notion of a manager or leader acting in the role of coach is a relatively new phenomenon that warrants further study (Hagen, 2012).

Overall, there are many variants of managerial coaching, which entail different types of skills. Those variants relevant to the consideration of managers and leaders include hierarchical coaching and team coaching.

Effective coaching skills for hierarchical coaching

Among the most common forms of managerial and leadership coaching is the hierarchical coaching model. According to this model, line managers simply coach their subordinates (Beattie et al., 2014).

A review of findings about what makes for an effective hierarchical coach found the following skills to be critical for the effective facilitation of learning (Hamlin, Ellinger, & Beattie, 2006):

• Creating a learning environment;
• Caring for and supporting staff;
• Providing feedback;
• Communicating, and;
• Providing resources.

Findings revealed that these skills had the effect of increasing coachees’ confidence, communication, and teamwork. They also facilitated a quicker induction to the organization and helped reduce reported feelings of stress (Hamlin et al., 2006).

Among the studies reviewed, another common theme was that managers (acting as coaches) found themselves learning in collaboration with their staff. This finding suggests that a robust and dyadic relationship with subordinates is key for effective hierarchical coaching.

Effective coaching skills for team coaching

A more challenging form of coaching conducted by leaders is team coaching. Here, members of the team must work together and be in agreement about goals and targets.

Likewise, there is often a need to ensure team members are given opportunities to leverage their strengths, much like in the world of sport, where players ideally play their ‘best positions’ (Beattie et al., 2014).

Given the challenges associated with coaching an entire group, the best team coaches tend to be those who have undergone formal learning and development in coaching (Hagen & Gavrilova Aguilar, 2012).

However, despite these many moving parts, key skills that have emerged across studies of team coaches are skills associated with delegation and empowerment.

Employees who are empowered are encouraged to…

“… take initiative without prodding, to serve the collective interests of the company without being micro-managed, and to act like owners of the business”.

Spreitzer (2008, p. 54)

In other words, good coaches should feel comfortable delegating challenging work to members of the team. Doing so has the effect of communicating trust in their capabilities, while also facilitating their learning (Beattie, 2002).

Coaching skills in the workplace

Implementing coaching skills in the workplace, regardless of your industry or level, can make you more effective at work and lead to promotions or other professional opportunities. Some skills in the workplace to consider are:

• Providing feedback: Individuals like to and need to hear how well they are performing. It helps to give positive reinforcement and promotes a positive work environment.

• Accepting feedback: Asking for others to give constructive responses will help you see any room for improvement you might need and will serve as an example for others who also want to improve professionally.

• Being flexible: Understanding that things can sometimes change without expectation and being able to adjust to those changes is great support for those you work with. It helps to build trust among team members and shows that obstacles can be overcome easily when working together.

• Improving morale: Team building is an essential part of leadership. Helping individuals build a relationship with one another motivates them to work effectively and makes the process of reaching goals and objectives enjoyable.

8 Coaching Skills for Managers and Leaders

If you’re a manager or leader looking to bring a coaching mentality to your leadership, here are some tips backed by research to help get you started.

First, in a team context, stop with the group motivational speeches and replace them with celebrations of individuals’ hard work and accomplishments. By recognizing a hardworking employee’s efforts, that employee will get the opportunity to feel valued and appreciated.

Likewise, research based on self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) has demonstrated that positive feedback motivates intentions to continue pursuing goals and fosters vitality (Mouratidis, Vansteenkiste, Lens, & Sideridis, 2008)

Secondly, a manager with effective coaching skills does not bark orders. Instead, they will work together with employees to develop ideas and implement plans collaboratively.

Research-based in procedural justice theory has shown that when individuals consider that the process through which leaders arrive at decisions is fair and well communicated, people will be more committed to a final course of action (Rawls, 1971).

Better yet, including employees in decision-making, goal-setting, and strategy development will lead to feelings of ownership over processes that will drive motivation even further (Tackx & Verdin, 2014).

Third, don’t punish failure as it is part of the process toward success. Coaching an employee through a mistake is a much better approach. An effective leader helps their team to learn from their errors to avoid them in the future.

A flow-on benefit of this approach to managing mishaps is that it will build trust between leaders and subordinates. That is, it will create the sense of psychological safety required to admit openly one’s mistakes and ask for help and mitigate the temptation to sweep errors under the rug (Edmondson, 2002).

Fourth, employ a strengths-based approach to developing your staff. When employees know their strengths and can consistently build on their work from those strengths, managers and their teams can forge better-functioning workplaces.

Such an approach is often referred to as appreciative inquiry. Its benefit is that it cultivates commitment to improving the organization without imposing a problem orientation or sense of doom and gloom on employees. Rather, employees are celebrated for what they already do well and encouraged to apply these strengths in such a way that facilitates growth.

Fifth, effective coaches are aware of the effect that their emotions have on their coachees. Therefore, when things get ‘hot,’ they get ‘cool.’ And when things are ‘cool,’ they ramp things up.

Effective leaders implicitly understand the transferability of emotions—a process sometimes referred to as emotional contagion (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1993). Therefore, good leaders are careful to manage their reactions to stressful situations and will look for opportunities to generate energy and excitement when a boost is needed within a team.

Sixth, effective leaders demonstrate genuine concern for employees’ wellbeing and life outside of work; they take care not to overtax people’s resources or push people beyond their limits. Indeed, to earn respect, a good manager and coach leads by example and is willing to shoulder the same burdens and stressors they expect their staff to handle.

Seventh is compassionate leadership. The act of showing compassion involves being with someone in their pain. It’s understanding another’s feelings and demonstrating a willingness to act in response to those feelings (Boyatzis, Smith, & Blaize, 2006).

Therefore, in the realm of coaching, compassionate leaders feel genuine pain for their employees when they’re struggling and show commitment to helping them reach their goals and find greater meaning in their work (Grant, 2008).

Finally, managers with effective coaching skills employ many of the same communication and active listening techniques as professional coaches.

Active listening is a powerful skill that helps cultivate trust and assures team members that their needs are being listened to. Here are a few ways to improve this important coaching skill:

• Maintain eye contact, and focus entirely on the other person;
• Mirror the speaker’s body language;
• Maintain a posture that demonstrates you are being attentive and listening;
• Talk less, and ask questions to clarify your understanding;
• Paraphrase and reflect back what was said; and
• Request permission before providing unsolicited feedback.

4 Examples of Coaching Skills in Action

Let’s now consider some examples of effective coaching skills in action.

First, imagine a scenario where an employee has been consistently late and underperforming at work. A manager has noticed this reduction in productivity. Rather than creating fear in this situation, a competent manager will dial up empathy and collaborate with active listening in a critical evaluation conversation.

Illuminating this employee on how the use of personal strengths can help the employee overcome whatever obstacle is being faced will help improve productivity.

Another work scenario that may benefit from a manager’s effective coaching skills is when a team is facing a crisis. Regardless of the specific event, a skilled manager will approach the situation with a cool head.

Asking ideas from all team members on how to “fix” the situation will generate more ideas than trying to solve it individually. A manager with effective coaching skills can approach any obstacle with a calm, objective focus. A deeper understanding of problems and solution-focused questioning creates pathways to resolutions.

Next, imagine that a new employee who is visibly nervous about their new role is linked with another professional by a manager. The two are encouraged to set goals together and hold each other accountable. This coaching skill would enable a team to collaborate and create a social connection that will build community within the organization.

Finally, good coaching skills can come in handy in times of conflict. Suppose there is a conflict between two employees. The effective coaching skills of active, equal listening and emotional intelligence are used to reduce anger, stress, and ineffective communication. Allowing space for each party in the conflict to be heard and to also co-create solutions helps to unify the team.

Examples of coaching skills

Leaders who exhibit great coaching skills earn the respect and appreciation of those they work with. The coaching skills and techniques they use help them form strong bonds while gaining the trust of others.

Incorporating a coaching methodology into your leadership strategy can help your employees, teams and organization to improve culture, employee satisfaction and productivity. Here are eight fundamental coaching skills that can help your leadership guide your business toward success:

1. Empathy

2. Curiosity

3. Positivity

4. Persistence

5. Innovation

6. Communication

7. Sincerity

8. Guidance

1. Empathy

Strong leaders have the ability to connect with others in a way that’s free of judgment. When you have an innate ability to see the perspective of another and understand them, you make good decisions even on difficult subjects because your focus is on helping the greater good rather than identifying what caused the difficulty. The ability to empathize with others shows you are a trustworthy individual and earns respect from others.

2. Curiosity

Curiosity is a trait that seeks to understand and improve when able. By remaining curious, you model the desire to learn and develop professionally, which helps you guide your team by example. A curious nature teaches others that learning and developing is a journey rather than an end goal, and it enables you to facilitate others’ learning as well.

3. Positivity

Focusing on weaknesses only disengages and discourages others, so staying positive is a coaching skill that is much needed to move a team in a productive direction. Help others see their strengths and validate their hard work. A good leader will help an individual identify their unique abilities and harness those skills to help them improve professionally and sometimes personally.

4. Persistence

A strong coach is focused on staying the course, and helps guide others toward their goals without getting discouraged. They can foresee issues and use obstacles and challenges as a means of improvement. As a good leader, your persistence will motivate others to keep pressing on despite any difficulties that arise.

5. Innovation

An essential coaching skill is to lead in developing ideas. Asking probing and open-ended questions of others is a way to help filter these ideas and solve problems creatively. Your ability to formulate questions and focus on solutions rather than problems will support others and assist in maintaining focus on a common goal.

6. Communication

Another essential skill to be a coach is effective communication. Communicating with clarity and transparency gains the trust of others and ensures that everyone is clear on expectations. Asking for feedback from team members or employees, practicing active listening and being forthright and articulate when voicing your ideas can help you create an inclusive environment, improve performance and help employees take ownership and enjoyment in their work.

7. Sincerity

Good leadership and coaching skills entail a sincere focus on the individual and a genuine desire to help. People will follow those who do not have ulterior motives and take a sincere interest in others. Being passionate about your work, humble in your abilities and patient with others demonstrates reliability and goodwill.

8. Guidance

Guiding a team with direction is another good coaching skill that effective leaders have. They can tactfully confront excuses or resistance by reflecting, clarifying and reforming problems as solutions to gain insight and overcome obstacles.

How to improve coaching skills

Some ways to improve your coaching skills are to:

1. Define your strengths. Consider the qualities you have already developed and use those as a basis for improvement and as tools to help guide you.

2. Identify your goals. Set some goals for improving your skills by asking for professional feedback from those you work with. Be open to their ideas and ask clarifying questions to be certain the message is clear. Try to make your goals specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based so that you have a clear target.

3. Seek a mentor. Observe those around you and identify someone you have confidence in and ask for help or guidance. This can help you develop lasting bonds and adopt their most effective traits as your own.

4. Build confidence. Keep your focus on your improvements and maintain some flexibility when learning. Staying positive about how you’ve helped coach others will build your own confidence.

8 Ways to Improve Your Coaching Skills

Developing your coaching skills will take effort.

It is similar to a self-development journey, for any growth requires effort. A coaching course is always a great idea, but you can start improving these skills today, whatever your budget constraints might be.

First, start by improving emotional intelligence in the workplace. Higher levels of job satisfaction and performance are linked to higher levels of emotional intelligence. (Singh, 2013) Boosting a leader’s levels will have a spillover effect with all other improvements in coaching skills.

Second, start putting effort into forging partnerships. When leadership begins to monopolize on human capital by intentionally building on existing strengths and collaborative growth, the organization will benefit as a whole (Gilley, Gilley, & Kouider, 2010)

Third, place intention on building individual competencies that arise from collaboration with employees. Effective leaders will lay the foundation for goal achievement with each member of the organization. Creating an environment that nurtures individual growth inspires the entire organization to show up as their best selves (Burdett, 1998).

Fourth, practice improving effective communication skills in every interaction daily. Modeling these skills, as a manager or leader, will set the expectation for the entire organization. Practicing active listening, in particular, will help communicate respect and attentiveness to employees and their needs (Jonsdottir & Fridriksdottir, 2020).

Given that listening is one of the most important of all coaching skills, here are communication exercises to improve communication skills in the workplace.

Fifth, create an environment where motivation is celebrated. Educate yourself on how motivation works. Then be sure to develop ways to apply the science at work.

Sixth, be aware that performance evaluation is an essential part of managerial coaching. It’s possible to evaluate the effectiveness of coaching by looking at what things are measured and how they are rewarded. Managers can and should be held accountable for their coaching skills through this evaluation process.

Seventh, do your best to eliminate fear in the workplace. Help employees develop purpose in their role within the organization (Edmondson, 2002). When a cohesive, vision-focused workforce collaborates and utilizes employees’ strengths toward common goals, the achievement is accelerated. With purpose, morale and overall job satisfaction improve (Nelson et al., 2002).

Finally, every leader should work to improve their coaching skills, and there are leaders in every workplace. Some leaders who don’t get paid (e.g., parents) can work to improve their coaching skills too. Active listening, motivation, communication, building purpose, interpersonal relationships, and accountability are all skills that will benefit everyone.

5. The Science Bit of Coaching Skills

There has been much research in recent decades into how the human brain works. Consequently, we are better able to understand the science behind why coaching in the workplace really works and helps learning stick!

Brain Maps, Learning and Habits

Our brains basically function by making connections and associations. Brains like to link what is happening now with what has happened in the past; we create a kind of mental ‘map’ of connections. We actually make over 1 million new connections every second!

When we first come across something, it takes us a while to get to grips with it. So if we are learning a new skill, it might take minutes, days or even months, depending on the complexity of what we are learning. Our brains gradually create a ‘map’ and this takes a lot of energy. But once the map is created, our brains can focus on other things. We call this process forming a habit. Habits are run by the more energy-efficient parts of our brain. Quite simply, our brains operate by forming habits.

Your Amazing Brain

The other thing we need to understand when we are talking about coaching and how brains learn is the concept of ‘neuroplasticity‘. In the book ‘The Brain that Changes Itself’, Norman Doidge points out that there is real evidence that we can ‘rewire our brains with our thoughts’.  Supporting this is Hebbian theory, developed by Donald Hebb back in the late 1940s. Hebb’s theory of neuroscience can be summarised as: ‘neurons that fire together wire together’. It posits that when we learn new things, the nerve cells within the brain begin to change to fit the required processes. Therefore, the more you focus on something, the more you analyse a problem, the deeper the connection you create in your brain.

This occurs through a physical process in the brain called ‘myelination’: the more a pathway is used, the stronger it becomes. When we repeat an action, myelin, a fatty covering, coats the neural pathway, making connections stronger and more secure.

This explains why it is hard to change habits but easier to create new ways of working.  Very simply, it’s because our brains prefer to go with the neural pathways that are already developed.

Coaching vs. Telling

The above theory explains why coaching works much better than telling in the world of learning. When we are told something, we don’t create a new mental map. When we gain insight from thinking about something in-depth, we do. It’s as simple as that. Consequently, providing insight through coaching (i.e. asking questions) is much more brain-friendly than telling someone the answer. To take any kind of action, we have to work things out for ourselves.

Furthermore, an additional issue with telling is that it is more likely to set up a ‘threat response’, as the individual’s predictions and connections are different to what was expected. This difference creates an ‘error message’ and a sense of pain in the brain. This, in turn, moves people away from the new information and increases the likelihood of resistance.

Therefore, if we tell rather than coach, we could be wasting our own energy and actually making it more difficult for our coachee to get to grips with a new idea. The coach’s job is to create insight, not to give advice. However, from testimonies from most trainee coaches, in practice, this is easier said than done!

6. A Model for Coaching Skills

The GROW Model for Improving Coaching Skills

Any article on coaching would not be complete without reference to the most famous coaching model, the GROW model.  The model was originally developed in the 1980s by business coaches Graham Alexander, Alan Fine, and Sir John Whitmore.  It quickly became the go-to tool for leadership coaching, upon the publication of Coaching for Performance by Sir John Whitmore in 1992.

It consists of four stages, based on each letter of the word, GROW:

The idea is to move through the model, from G-R-O-W, asking the coachee different types of questions at each stage in order to help the individual move closer toward their goal.

How Does it Work in Coaching Skills?

The coachee starts at ‘Goal’ (G), where they define their initial outcome(s) and goals with the aid of coach questioning. The next stage ‘Reality’ (R), requires the coachee to explore and describe their current state. The coach helps by asking questions that encourage self-assessment and evaluation. The following stage ‘Options’ (O), explores how the coachee can reach their goal, examining all possible options. The coach invites suggestions, and uses supporting tools such as mind maps to make sure all options (regardless of how abstract) are fully explored.  The coach may offer suggestions, however carefully and sparingly, and only once the coachee has explored their own options/suggestions first. In the last stage ‘Will’ (W), sometimes called ‘Way Forward’ or ‘Wrap Up’, the coachee is encouraged to commit to an option or specific action with the coach helping to support and motivate.

Awareness and Responsibility

Sir John Whitmore advocated that coaching was all about developing or raising two things in the coachee, their level of awareness and their level of responsibility.

‘If I give you my advice and it fails, you will blame me. I have traded my advice for your responsibility and that is seldom a good deal.’ – Sir John Whitmore.

A Different Perspective: The Growth Model

The image, below, provides a different way to think about the GROW model, by extending it to include tactics and habits:

7. GROW Model Questions to Enhance Your Coaching Skills

In the image below, we have provided some examples of effective questions to use at each stage of the GROW model:

Improve Your Coaching With our Coaching Skills Cards

Whether you are managing people, beginning your coaching journey at work, or are a qualified coach, these cards provide an easily accessible way of using the GROW coaching model as a framework to get results.

8. Other Coaching Models to be Used with Your Coaching Skills

The following are examples of two models that have looked to extend and develop the GROW Model.  Interestingly, they have particular relevance for managers looking to develop their skills as a coach.

OSCAR Coaching Skills Model

An interesting alternative to GROW is the OSCAR Coaching Model, a further way to ensure you have solution based coaching. The OSCAR Coaching Model was developed by Andrew Gilbert & Karen Whittleworth in 2002. The model builds on the GROW model and is particularly useful for managers seeking to adopt a coaching style. It takes the following structure:

• Outcome – help coachee (or team member) to clarify their outcomes.
• Situation – establish where the coachee is now.
• Choices and Consequences – help the coachee generate as many choices as possible and highlight the consequences of each potential choice.
• Actions – help the coachee establish their next steps, and encourage responsibility for their action plan.
• Review – create an ongoing dialogue of review and evaluation with the coachee continuously checking that they are on course.

OSKAR Coaching Skills Model

Similar to OSCAR, the OSKAR Coaching Model was developed by Mark McKergow and Paul Z Jackson in the early 2000s.

• Outcome – help coachee establish outcome(s) and objectives.
• Scaling – utilise a scale from 1-10 to establish and quantify how far the coachee is from where they want to be (desired outcome).
• Know-how – help the coachee explore what they need to achieve their desired outcome (and move along the scale), exploring the key skills, knowledge, qualifications, and attributes that are required.
• Affirm + Action – establish what is currently working well, and explore actions needed to improve the score.
• Review – discuss actions taken, and decide what has improved and what the coachee needs to do next to continue the improvement.

9. Seven Coaching Skills’ Tools to Make the Learnings Stick

In the infographic below you can find seven useful tools and theories we draw upon in our Executive Coaching course:

Learning Styles

At MBM we know that everyone is different. As such, we all learn in different ways.  By understanding the different styles of learning we can tailor our approach to the individual needs of the coachee. This, in turn, helps the coachee learn quicker and easier, thus, maximising the short and long-term benefits of the coaching course.

Personal Development Plan

Continuous personal development is best achieved with a plan of action detailing your aspirations across many areas. Personal Development Plans (PDPs), sometimes called Individual Development Plans (IDPs) are an important part of your personal and professional development. Having a visual plan of where you are now, where you see yourself in the future, and what steps you need to make it happen is an excellent starting place. You can find some Personal Development Plan Examples in our blog post.  We’ve also compiled a list of some of the best learning videos and a useful list of TED Talks on the subject too.

GROW Model

GROW is the go-to model for coaching, you can find our history and overview earlier in this article on Coaching Skills.

Competency Frameworks

Competency Frameworks and Skills Scorecards comprise a set of attributes and behaviours written by an employer that broadly defines what the company expects from a person in any role or de-compartmentalisation of that role, thus benchmarking it. Frameworks are often used for development discussions, as a recruitment tool and as a performance management aid. To learn more, take a look at our blog post about Competency Frameworks and download a free example.

Drivers

Drivers are unconscious internal pressures that make us do things certain ways. They can sometimes (not always) be inappropriate or unhelpful in obtaining results, and tend to satisfy inner needs rather than actual events. Drivers are good for identifying external signs that reflect internal processes. We use a Drivers Questionnaire to help our coachees understand what drives them.

Conflict Mode Instrument

Conflict Resolution Training is a natural part of how we interact with others.  It is not as negative as the connotation suggests, in fact, it can be beneficial in the workplace.  If managed correctly, it can improve workplace cohesion and lead to greater goal clarity. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) helps measure how a person behaves when presented with a conflict situation.  It analyses the dimensions, assertiveness and cooperativeness.

HBDI

Founded by Willian ‘Ned’ Herrmann, HBDI® (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) is a psychometric assessment tool that identifies an individual’s thought preferences. By understanding your thought preferences, you can consequently achieve a greater appreciation for how you learn, which in turn, helps decision making, problem-solving, and communication.

This excellent article by Ann Herrmann-Nehdi: https://www.thinkherrmann.com/hubfs/Articles/Coaching_With_Style.pdf explores how essential understanding how you think can be to the coaching process, ensuring you ‘set up your coaching with your brain in mind’.

10. The Top Ten Effective Coaching Skills

Coaching is about providing the right balance of two things to your coachee: support and challenge. There are several essential skills a good coach needs in order to do this:

1. Listening

This is so important, we put it at the top of the list. You can’t be a good coach unless you really, really listen. Note, it doesn’t just mean listening to what is being said. It also means listening to what is not being said. This is where you can really help your coachee – by asking insightful questions about what you notice might be going on for them.

The GROW model identifies four levels of listening skills:

• Attentive listening – giving someone full attention.
• Accurate listening – understanding the issue at hand fully.
• Emphatic listening – showing appreciation of the other person’s feelings on the issue at hand. Put yourself in their shoes.
• Generative listening – fully understanding the issue at hand, which allows you to ask enlightening and insightful questions.

2. Questioning

Asking questions is at the heart of great coaching. They are the tools of your trade. There are so many different types of questions that can be used. Some are more helpful than others.  The best questions are ones that give insight into the person you are coaching. The best way to remind yourself of open questions is ‘5 Bums on a Rugby Post’. This will help you to remember to use open questions by starting a question with either: what, where, when, who, why, and also how (the ‘H’ is the Rugby post!).

In a ‘pure’ coaching scenario, only open questions are used, so that the agenda is fully under the control of the coachee. However, in practice, it’s always good to use closed questions to clarify things or probing questions to dig a bit deeper.

Over time you will develop a set of great coaching questions that work for you. Here are a few of our favorites:

• What would the wisest person you know advise you to do right now?
• What would be a crazy/ radical/ brave thing to do?
• If you could wave a magic wand, what would be happening differently?
• What’s stopping you?
• What’s really going on for you?
• What else? (ask this several times over, you’ll always get more ideas)
• What is the best question I could ask you now?
• Is there anything you believe about yourself that might be holding you back?
• What have you learnt/ are you learning about yourself through this process?
• What’s the best/ worst thing that could happen?

Our best tip for asking great questions? Go with your own curiosity.

3. Building Rapport

This is chronologically the first skill you need to use as a coach as it is the gateway to trust. The coaching process will not work unless you create a good rapport from the beginning, and it should be maintained throughout the coaching relationship. Rapport is what allows coachees to feel relaxed with their coach and open up – so that personal barriers and fears can be identified. It also allows the coach to ask harder and more challenging questions.

Some of the key things that emerge when building rapport are: empathizing (see below), the use of body language, the use of voice and language and the importance of being warm and personable. It’s easier, for example, to create rapport with someone who provides eye contact and smiles.  It’s better to sit at right angles with your coachee than opposite them. You can also gently match and mirror their body language.

It’s also worth noting that coaching is a bit like dating. There are just some people that you won’t click with. If you feel like you can’t develop a rapport together, it’s better to acknowledge this early and find the coachee an alternative coach. Rather this, than try and keep the coaching relationship going when the coachee is unlikely to open up and trust you.

4. Empathising

Empathy can be defined as our ability to put ourselves in others’ shoes and appreciate how they are likely to be feeling or thinking in a given situation. What might it feel like to be them?

Daniel Goleman, who coined the concept of ‘Emotional Intelligence’ stated that ’empathy is the most important people skill’. He says that empathy is an important communication skill, but it can be easily forgotten because we focus on what should be done in a situation, rather than on how the other person feels.

The effect of empathy is to help you to understand the other person’s needs and to show an understanding of their views and feelings. This is really important when creating trust and rapport in the coaching relationship.

It’s also worth remembering that empathy is different from sympathy. When we empathise we become one with that person’s distress. You put yourself in their shoes and imagine what they are going through. You don’t necessarily share their feelings, however, but you understand it from their perspective. In contrast, sympathy is feeling compassion or sorrow for the hardships that another person is experiencing.

5. Summarising and Reflecting

The advanced listening skills of summarising and reflecting help you guide your coachee to allow them to make sense of what they are grappling with.

Summarising means repeating what the coachee has said, taking the main points of the received message and reiterating them. Done in a logical and clear way, it gives the coachee a chance to correct something if necessary. Summarising is useful as it keeps the coachee focussed on the issue and their thinking progress so far.

Reflecting means closely repeating or paraphrasing what the coachee has said to show comprehension.  Reflection is a powerful skill that can reinforce the thoughts of the coachee. It allows the coachee to step back and look at an issue objectively.

6. Unlocking Limiting Beliefs

This one is about using your intuition and then asking challenging questions. Underneath the initial symptom or issue, there is usually something deeper.

Beliefs are ‘a principle accepted as true or real without proof’. Beliefs are strange things. We all have them and often don’t even question them. We hold them as true even if we have no evidence to support them

Our beliefs have a major impact on our behaviour. Some beliefs can help us become successful; others can hold us back, these are known as ‘limiting beliefs’. Limiting beliefs can get people stuck.

Helping your coachee identify and challenge underlying limiting beliefs can, consequently, be one of the most powerful parts of the coaching process and can be an enlightening and even emotional process for the coachee. The role of a coach is to get people to question their inner beliefs. In order for a coach to do this, there has to be a foundation of trust and rapport.

7. Staying Focused

It’s really important as a coach to make sure that the coaching session stays on track and does not degenerate into a general discussion or chat. It’s also important to ensure the coachee doesn’t digress too much or get caught up in too much detail.

Staying focused can involve summarising and guiding the flow of the conversation back to a framework such as the GROW model, using further questioning. It can also mean interjecting from time to time to pull things back on track.

8. Being Non-Judgemental and Open-Minded

This is a critical skill which is the foundation of good coaching. As a coach, it’s simple: we don’t get to judge another human being. Being a great coach is about being curious and having an open and inquisitive mind. This will allow you to focus on doing the best for your coachee by reflecting, providing feedback and asking great questions.

Being open-minded means understanding that other people have different points of view, and that in their view of the world, they may be right.

9. Giving Constructive Feedback

One of the most useful things for your coachee can be you pointing out to them things you are noticing about them, for instance, their behaviour, their reactions to questions, and their facial expressions. Sometimes people don’t see stuff about themselves and often others won’t be brave enough to tell them. As a coach, you have a privileged position of trust where you can point these things out to them, so it is well received and helps them with their issues. The picture below highlights some of the important areas to cover when giving great feedback:In a ‘pure’ coaching scenario, only open questions are used, so that the agenda is fully under the control of the coachee. However, in practice, it’s always good to use closed questions to clarify things or probing questions to dig a bit deeper.

Over time you will develop a set of great coaching questions that work for you. Here are a few of our favourites:

• What would the wisest person you know advise you to do right now?
• What would be a crazy/ radical/ brave thing to do?
• If you could wave a magic wand, what would be happening differently?
• What’s stopping you?
• What’s really going on for you?
• What else? (ask this several times over, you’ll always get more ideas)
• What is the best question I could ask you now?
• Is there anything you believe about yourself that might be holding you back?
• What have you learnt/ are you learning about yourself through this process?
• What’s the best/ worst thing that could happen?

Our best tip for asking great questions? Go with your own curiosity.

There is an art to giving supportive feedback so that it lands well. Not being judgemental (see Skill 8 above) is key. Furthermore, make sure your feedback is constructive, specific, and observed, ‘here’s something I’m noticing is a good way to start and a great coaching skill for leaders.

10. Resisting Temptation to Tell

Not telling your coachee what you think the answers are or giving advice. We have talked about this a lot in this article, but it’s so important we thought we’d mention it again- see in the Coaching Skills guide above  It is hard to master so we’ve classed it as a skill.

Business Coaching

When individuals improve, the entire team performs better, and that makes coaching a vital component in organisations. This has become especially relevant in the competitive, high-speed world we live in today. Coaching is now recognised as one of the most powerful interventions for accelerating learning and driving organisational performance, as such many organisations are investing in coaching skills for leaders and coaching skills for managers.

Executive Coaching

Executive coaching is where an employee (usually a leader, manager, or someone identified as having potential) receives one-to-one coaching sessions to support their leadership skills training and to further develop and deal with any individual challenges.

Many companies choose to have external coaches run these sessions. Having an impartial coach can help leaders to open up and deal with difficult situations faster.  Some companies, however, use internal coaches. These are often people in an existing line role who add coaching as an extra discipline to their role; other organisations have a dedicated internal coaching team.

Personal coaching plans for people receiving coaching sessions in organisations will typically run for up to 6-12 months. They will encompass the setting of, and achievement of, a set goal or goals. It might help, such as, to perceive those you coach as athletes who want to become better in their game. In the workplace scenario, the goal is to help employees refine their skills, based on the institution’s competency framework.  Without a doubt, the greatest reason companies use coaches is to increase emotional intelligence in senior leaders and high potential staff. To learn more about this, see our Coaching Skills for Leaders section in our Ultimate Guide to Leadership Skills.

Manager as Coach

It has been recognised in recent decades that managers can get the best out of people by using a coaching, rather than the ‘telling’ approach.

Google’s Project Oxygen proved categorically the positive impact that a coaching approach can make on staff motivation and performance. In a multi-year research project, they used rigorous data analytics to demonstrate the link between coaching skills for managers/management behaviour and positive people results, proving to its staff once and for all that ‘management mattered’.

In fact not only did they prove that management mattered; Google went on to identify eight key behaviours demonstrated by the company’s most effective managers. Moreover, being a good coach was cited as the very first attribute:

This recognition of the power of managers as coaches has led to many companies evolving their management skills development strategies and equip their managers with the skills to coach.

11. Coaching Skills for Managers and Supervisors

So, if you’re a manager looking to coach your team, where do you start building your coaching skills for managers?

Well, let’s look at a typical conversation between a manager and someone in their team:

Individual: ‘I’ve got a problem’
Manager Response 1: ‘Yes and what are you going to do about it?’

Now let’s look at a different approach:

Individual: ‘I’ve got a problem’
Manager Response 2: ‘What have you tried so far?‘

The second response is much better because it assumes the manager believes they have the capacity to solve the problem.  It assumes that the individual has done something already and encourages them in the future to get into the habit of doing something before they bring it to their manager. Consequently, this is a far more positive and empowering approach.

This coaching approach moves away from a culture where the expectation is that managers have all the answers – and instead moves towards one where managers coach the answers out of their teams.

Departing from the Manager with All Answers

As a manager, adapting to coaching skills for managers’ style allows you to step up and focus on the things you want to focus on. Consequently, it prevents you from being dragged into solving problems that your team members are likely capable of solving for themselves. With a coaching approach, you are empowering and stretching your people, helping them to learn and to solve their own problems. The great news is that, like any habit, once you build this culture it sticks, and it’s contagious.

Of course, telling people is quicker – and in today’s fast-paced environment, it’s hard to resist the temptation to tell someone the answer and get the issue off your desk when you’re busy. It’s worth remembering when this temptation arises that the advantages always outweigh the disadvantages in the longer term.

If you tell your team what to do, they won’t buy into your decision, they won’t learn, and they’ll be less committed, take less responsibility and be less creative. Inevitably, they’ll be back, and you will need to tell them an answer again. Yes, coaching takes time, but the long-term benefits are vast. People take responsibility, they learn, and they create solutions that stick and commit to those solutions. They get used to coming up with ideas for themselves. Furthermore, coaching ignites creativity and innovation.

12. Ten Top Tips for Being a Really Great Coach

1. Never Skimp on Building Rapport

The more you can invest in it early on, the better it will serve you. To have effective coaching skills you need Trust.

2. Establish Goals

If your coachee hasn’t got goals, you’re not coaching them. Don’t move forward with any more questions until the goal is clear. Sometimes coachees begin with clear goals. For others, however, the biggest challenge for them is to define what they want in the first place. You may need to spend some time helping them do just that!

3. Use Open Questions

Try to stick to open questions instead of closed questions- we have already mentioned this in this effective Coaching Skills article. Open questions get people thinking. Closed questions stop people from having to think. Try to ask a few closed questions as possible.

4. Be Content Free

Remember that the best effective coaching skills questions bring insight to the other person, not to you!  Try to focus on being ‘content-free’ when you are coaching; you don’t need to be clear about all the details – only they do.

5. Trust Your Intuition

All coaches worry about what questions to ask next. Just use your intuition and go with your curiosity. Trust yourself to come up with the questions and develop your own effective coaching skills questions.

6. Don’t Ask ‘Why?’

Avoid using the question ‘Why?’. It flips us back to our childhood. You can, however, replace it with ‘What?’ which opens up people’s intuition and is a great example of communication skills coaching.

7. Highlight Interesting Behaviour(s) or Language

If you are noticing something that you find interesting in your coachee’s behaviour or language, maybe something that stands out or raises questions for you, call it out. This kind of feedback can be very powerful and great in social skills coaching.

8. Stay on Track

Remember, in a coaching session, the ‘meter is running’. Coaching is not having a chat. Stay focused and make every moment count!

9. Dig Deeper

The issue that first presents is never the real issue. When you can dig deep and help your coachee figure out what the real issue is (usually an unchallenged limiting belief), use your life coaching skills to reach the real gold dust of coaching.

10. Invest in Continuous Development

Becoming a great coach is a journey, not a destination. You can always keep developing your life coaching skills.Final Thoughts

Understanding what effective coaching skills really are (and what it isn’t), and how and why it works in the first place is critical to developing effective coaching techniques. Being a coach is about being a facilitator of someone else’s learning; it’s not about telling them, advising them or doing it for them. When done well, it’s one of the most empowering and powerful learning methodologies open to businesses and organisations.

One-half of your job as a coach is listening and understanding the driving force behind those you coach – what’s really going on for them. The other half is working with the individual to help them identify ways to improve their own performance so that they can unleash their full potential.

The hardest bit about coaching? Not telling the coachee what you think they should do or giving them advice. It sounds easier than it is. It’s a lot harder than you think. Those of you who have already started your coaching journey will already know this.

Good luck with developing your effective coaching skills, and if you need any help, we’re here (and, of course, we’re really listening).

Coaching Skills Training

Click here to learn more about our classroom-based Coaching Course or contact us or fill out the form below for further information.

To discuss how one of our UK Grocery Executive Coaches can help you to achieve more, please contact us. Our coaches are from your industry and can provide coaching on any one of our products, from Negotiation Skills to Category Management to Time Management to Communication Skills Coaching and Presentation Skills coaching, using the GROW Model. Find out how we can help you be the very best version of yourself with Executive Coaching.

13. Further Reading and Resources

You can find further insight, detailed definitions and clarification of all the key Coaching terms mentioned in this guide in our Glossary of Terms.

Quotes

‘Coaching is centred on unlocking a person’s potential to maximise his or her own performance…improving the individual with regard to performance and the development of skills.’ – Timothy Gallwey

‘Many discussions are unclear when the intention is vague or hidden. People speak around and around an issue instead of coming to the point and stating their intention.’ – Jackie Arnold

‘Coaching is a process that enables learning and development to occur and thus performance to improve.’ – Eric Parsloe

‘For the teacher or coach, the question has to be how to give instructions in such a way as to help the natural learning process of the student and not interfere with it.’ – Timothy Gallwey

‘I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.’– Socrates Books

The following books are some of our favourites on coaching. They will help you further your knowledge and understanding of coaching and are full of lots of useful tools, tips and ideas that you can put into practice. Additionally, you can find more of our recommended reading for self-improvement in our Best Self Help Books post on our blog.

1. Coaching for Performance: The Principles and Practice of Coacing and Leadership by Sir John Whitmore. This is where business coaching really took off and is as good and relevant today as it was when it was first written.
2. 50 Top Tools for Coaching: A Complete Toolkit for Developing and Empowering People by Gillian Jones & RO Gorell. A very practical book of coaching tools suitable for various different coaching scenarios.
3. The Inner Game of Tennis: The Ultimate Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance by Timothy Gallwey.
4. The Inner Game of Work: Focus, Learning, Pleasure, and Mobility in the Workplace by Timothy Gallwey.
5. OSCAR Coaching Model by Andrew Gilbert and Karen Whittleworth.
6. Making Coaching Work: Creating a Coaching Culture by David Clutterbuck and David Megginson.
7. Coaching Skills for Leaders in the Workplace: How to Unlock Potential and Maximise Performance by Jackie Arnold
8. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. There are some great coaching tools in here and some great ideas about listening.

Coaching Skill Training Opportunities and Courses

There are many coaching books that can help build coaching skills. Highly recommended is Joe Torre’s Ground Rules For Winners: 12 Keys to Managing Team Players, Tough Bosses, Setbacks, and Success (Torre & Dreher, 1999), a book that will benefit every manager or leader, whether you’re a baseball fan or not.

The principles Torre presents were used with tremendous success in the New York Yankees’ golden years. Even if you’re a Yankees hater, you can still learn from one of the game’s greatest managers.

Here are some training opportunities and courses for leaders seeking improvement in their skills.

1. UC Davis offers an effective course called Coaching Skills for Managers via Coursera. The course offers research on effective coaching skills and creates a foundation for transforming teams.
2. The Flourishing Center offers a highly effective coaching skills training course that weaves the science of positive psychology into developing thriving coaches. This particular course is only available to graduates of the Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP) course. The science-backed skills learned through CAPP are serving leaders in a wide variety of workspaces across the globe.
3. This course at Learning Tree International offers coaching skill building for teams. They collaborate with organizations to enhance team effectiveness and boost productivity. It can be delivered privately at any desired location or online.
4. Performance Consultants has had global success building managers with coaching skills that increase productivity. Their workshops have helped many organizations across the globe. They were pioneers in coaching skills for managers.
5. Cornerstone is another global organization that incubates effective leaders by developing a culture of life-long learning and compassion. Their products and services are highly regarded as organization-changing. Their client reviews are outstanding.

Relevant Tools for Developing Your Coaching Skills

Our website is overflowing with transformative tools that can be used to develop your coaching skills.

Improving your leadership coaching skills is an iterative loop, dependent on feedback that will provide you with insight into areas where you can improve. Instructor Feedback Form to get valuable information from your coachees, with which to develop your skills.

Effective communication skills is essential. Knowing how to listen, and encouraging a person to continue, can be improved with our Using Small Rewards worksheet. It guides you with effective words to use, as well as practice applying these in conversations.

This tool helps leaders motivate others through a self-assessment of needs. This exercise facilitates behavioral change while embracing Self-Determination Theory. People tend to get in their own way with maladaptive behaviors from time to time. This tool serves clients through empathy, relatedness, and autonomy in the self-development of personal behavior change.

The Catching Your Critic worksheet will help distance you from that inner critic that plagues so many in personal performance.

There is an abundance of helpful tools in our Positive Psychology Toolkit© for building communication, goals, community, listening, empathy, compassion, and many other skills that serve the best managers and leaders well. A good leader is always learning how to better serve those around them. This resource is massively helpful for any leader seeking to improve themselves and their organization.

A Take-Home Message

Through changes in personal behaviors, organizations can easily see the importance of coaching within management and leadership. Effective coaching skills bring clarity, improve performance, and even improve safety on the job. By effectively developing managerial coaching skills, teams are rewarded with improved morale, increased job satisfaction, and productivity.

Effective coaching skills serve every level of employment. Increasing empathy and compassion in every job reduces stress and replaces it with human growth potential. Tough situations and difficult conversations become easier to maneuver when coaching skills are well learned and regularly practiced.