The business of coaching is growing rapidly and there are a mass of
people out there calling themselves coaches. It can be very confusing
for someone looking for a coach to find the right one for them.
A
quick search will find lots of different titles: life coach, business
coach, executive coach, personal coach, career coach, health coach,
conflict coach, dating coach, sports coach victimisation coach,
leadership coach, performance coach, and so on. These people vary from
the totally unqualified to the highly professional; and from
one-man-bands, through to companies employing dozens of coaches, up to
international franchise operations.
How do you pick a good coach,
who is right for you? What can you look out for to help you select a
coach who understands you and can help you to move forward?
What characteristics make a good coach?
In the pages that follow, you will find five important questions
that you can pose to any prospective coach to ensure that you get the
results that you want and that your investment gives you a good return.
This
paper focuses on leadership coaching. A leadership coach aims to
maximise the performance of leaders, or aspiring leaders, as individuals
and as groups. Leaders may be business owners, directors, senior
managers or more junior managers who are moving up the ladder. The
common feature is the need to address the challenges they face as
business leaders and the need to solve business challenges and see
bottom line improvements through personal or team performance
improvements. The issues that come up are complex and the individual
challenges may be significant, therefore the choice of leadership coach
is critical.
1. How will you work with my company and my team?
The first point to consider is whether the coach will fit in with
you and your business. There has to be a 'fit' with the personality,
style and background of the coach and the culture of the business and
the personality of the team that is being coached.
This fit does
not need to be too cosy. Coaching will be challenging and there are
times when coaches need to be stretched or confronted with uncomfortable
truths. Therefore it may be better to think of 'fit' as being one more
of mutual respect and understanding.
Therefore ask the question,
listen to the answer and hear what your gut instinct, or inner voice,
says. If you sense that the coach will fit in, engender respect and has
the edge to work firmly but sensitively and empathetically with your
most difficult team member, then you are off to a good start.
2. What is your background and how does it apply to my business?
These are key questions to ask - especially the applicability of the
coach's background. The challenge though is in deciding just what the
right answer is.
A good coach will intelligently employ a process
to help a client get through to the right results for them and their
particular challenge. This means that in some senses, any good coach,
regardless of background, can coach any client through any issue. There
certainly are some life coaches and personal coaches out there that will
say this. However, in the more specialist forms of coaching, coaches
will bring an extensive amount of experience and training to bear that
they can employ in a pure coaching process, or design a more nuanced
process which blends training, mentoring and coaching to better meet the
clients' particular needs. In this way you can create an enormously
powerful process which not only connects a coachee with new insights and
powerful goals, but equips them with new tools, knowledge and mindsets
in a way that a generalist could never hope to achieve.
You will
thus need to listen to your prospective coach's answers and see how the
whole package might meet your needs and what synergies exist. However,
don't look at experience too rigidly. Your coach does not need to have
done the coachees' job before nor do they need to have reached a more
senior position than them. They must though have credible and
transferable knowledge and experiences and it is how the whole package
is deployed in support of your business and personal goals that is
important to listen out for.
3. Do you have or work from a proven system?
This is a key question but again should not be employed too rigidly.
There are a number of approaches to coaching, each with a formula,
process or methodology. Each has its strengths. What is important is to
look for a clear methodology that is applied consistently but which has
sufficient flexibility to take the client wherever they need to go.
There are plenty of coaches who stick rigidly to their process and will
not deviate. This is unnecessary and leads not only to poor results but
an increased chance that the coachee will lose momentum.
Should
you hear from a coach a completely opposite view, and that they take a
freeform approach and will just take each session from a standing start
and look at the issues which the coachee brings in that day, alarm bells
should ring. This approach might be useful for day-to-day tactical
thinking through of topical issues; however it will never address the
bigger challenges that will move the coachee's performance to the next
level. That is usually what a leadership coach is employed for and
should be looking to deliver. Furthermore, unstructured coaching can
consume a lot of time and this, to a busy executive, can make coaching
difficult to schedule. An hour or 75 minutes is more than long enough
for a full session to make significant progress. So look for a proven
methodology that can be applied flexibly and in a time-efficient manner.
4. What kind of support do you have from your coaching company? How big is your network?
This question will help you to gauge the depth and breadth of
knowledge, products and services your prospective leadership coach will
be able to draw on in supporting you and your company. However,
employing a lone coach is nothing to worry about and looking at the
bigger companies is not necessary. There are a number of larger coaching
schools and the graduates of the better ones will employ similar
standards and techniques. I, for example, have followed an extensive
training programme with Results Coaching Systems (RCS), an international
school that takes assessment and certification very seriously. I am
certified by them and can potentially draw on a pool of hundreds of
fellow RCS graduates to use as associates. Ordinarily I would recommend
and work with a small number of trusted colleagues.
5. What is your company's track record of business experience and results?
Finally, you'll want to see and hear about the results your
prospective coach has achieved in their career, both as a coach and
before. You will also want to see and hear testimonials from a range of
clients. You should also be able to contact them directly to get some
first-hand feedback about your coach. Don't take slick salesmanship at
face value in this market and look for real results. This is especially
important with the bigger companies and franchise operations, as they
may have long track records and success around the globe but when it
comes to leadership coaching, it is the individual coach sat with you
that is important, not the business behind him or her. You will be
working with an individual and it is the knowledge, skills and tools
that they use, and the rapport that exists between you, that is so
important. Therefore whether you are employing a lone practitioner or a
team from a big company, look carefully at each individual and test each
one out. A short trial session between coach and coachee will usually
be enough to tell whether the relationship is going to work or not.
After Your First Meeting. . . What Now?
After your first meeting or trial session, you can then ask yourself
some additional questions to confirm your initial impressions.
1) Has the coach clearly outlined a robust, proven and flexible coaching methodology?
2) Did the coach ask powerful, useful and engaging questions?
3) Did the coach seem robust enough to hold you accountable and keep you on track?
4) Was the coach honest about the challenges ahead and clear about how their ethical guidelines would be applied?
5) Did the coach put you at ease and place your issues and need for results first?
Coaching
is all about making big changes that produce big results - for you and
your business. If this were easy then you would do it yourself. It isn't
and that is why you employ a coach. Your coach must place you and your
needs first, but in doing this they will need to take you through a
challenging process. You may find this difficult at times and a good
coach will hold you accountable for the actions that you undertake to
complete. Should you not accomplish these then you will need to uncover
the reasons for this as there may be big and useful lessons to learn.
Sometimes you will uncover uncomfortable truths and your coach will help
you to confront these sympathetically and in confidence. You need to
have a high degree of trust and rapport with your coach and your coach
will need to combine a strength of character with a high degree of
empathy. Look out for this as you answer these questions.
So, Are You Ready for Leadership Coaching?
Coaching demands a substantial investment of time, emotion, energy
and finances and can deliver a massive return for you and your business.
The results of leadership coaching will be seen in your levels of
confidence, clarity, energy, focus, productivity, happiness and that of
your team too. There will be bottom-line benefits too.
So take
time to reflect on how you felt after speaking to your prospective
coach, and look through their experience, achievements, methodology and
the other resources that they can call on. Coaching can take you on a
massive journey of change at the end of which you have made a huge step
change in your performance. The key question to ask is: is this the
coach to guide me and travel with me on this journey?
Your Next Step
If you are keen to make a change and think that coaching is right
for you, the first step, if you haven't already, is to book a free trial
coaching session. All coaches should offer this. Typically I do these
on Skype for 20 to 30 minutes, others may do them face-to-face for an
hour. Whatever the format, if you like the experience and wish to sign
up to a coaching programme then you can discuss that after the trial
session. Even if you don't sign up the trial session will generate some
benefit for you personally.
Remember, that any top class athlete
will see a sports coach as an essential part of their sporting life,
teaching, guiding, inspiring, motivating them and holding them to
account in their training. In the same way, if you are serious about
your business or career and getting to the next level, then a leadership
coach is an important part of your performance as a leader. Just think
what it will be like to have your own coach, pushing you, guiding you,
encouraging you, keeping you on track and celebrating your success with
you. If that is what you want, then act now and see what it is really
like.
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