Coaching Skills And Training Needs

There are specific coaching skills that a coach needs, such as questioning, listening and rapport building skills, which if you don’t already possess can be developed through the right coach training.

Building Rapport

It is essential that as a good coach you build a first class relationship with your client and the first step is building up a great rapport with them.

Rapport is built when you find common ground between you and your client and when you can show empathy with them. If a client is aware that you have a similar background or are experienced in a particular field where they require help, then this helps to establish rapport more quickly. This gives weight to the argument for coaching people where you have prior experience or expertise.

An initial exploratory session without a coaching agenda is useful to understand the issues, challenges and needs of the client and to start the rapport building process. You can build rapport more quickly by asking easy, open-ended questions which do not put the client on the spot, instead encourage them to talk freely about areas that are important to them.

There are a number of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques which you can use to help build rapport which includes ways of developing your body language.

Listening Skills

Listening is one of the fundamental coaching skills. If you are a good coach you will spend the majority of your time listening rather than talking, and even put aside personal thoughts as you focus in on the client one hundred percent.

A good listener is one who will not only hear the words being spoken but also will be good at picking up on a client’s tone of voice and the body language to really what is being said. Essential coaching skills include the ability to pick up on a client’s emotions and unsaid thoughts, spot underlying issues, inconsistencies and even instances when a client doesn’t really mean what they are saying.

Expert Questioner

A coach needs to be able to develop the ability to ask just the right questions at the right time, responding to the needs of the client, not just reading out a checklist of questions. At times a coach will need to be able to ask non-challenging questions that will encourage a client to open up, and at other times ask deeper more thought provoking or challenging questions. A skillful coach will ask those questions that the client wouldn’t ask themselves and which help the client come to their own solutions. See sample coaching questions.

Ability to Provide Feedback and Challenge

A client may have difficulty in confronting those issues which are preventing them from making progress and may avoid being totally honest with their coach or themselves. A great coach, through careful listening, can pick up on inconsistencies, feed back what they have heard and in doing so challenge their client. As a good coach you need to be prepared to challenge and be skilled enough to do it in a way that will help your client.

Goal Setting

Since coaching is about helping clients move forward as a coach you need to be able to help clients understand what they are aiming to achieve. By helping clients set specific goals, for what they want to achieve overall from their coaching programme and from individual sessions you can help them work out plans for achieving them. For more on how to set goals see Goal Setting.

Related Pages:-

Become A Coach
Types Of Coach
Qualities Of A Coach
Goal Setting Tips

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