As someone who trains and mentor coaches, Iāll often hear coaches say that if they had more time in a coaching session, they would have been able to ask this or say that. Some coaches say that 30 minutes isnāt...
Category: Coaching Mentoring Tips
Be Present to Client Language
One of the best ways for a coaching client to feel heard is to use the clientās language in our reflections, messages and questions. There are many of the ICF core competencies affected by how well the coach listens including...
Be attentive to your clients agenda
I think that every coach would agree that we are hired to support our clients to discover and achieve what they want, and find their way to implement their ideas, not our way or our ideas. This empowers our client...
Own your faux pas with coaching clients
As coaches, we may sometimes inadvertently say things to our client that we then realize is not the best thing to have said. We model being authentic and human when we own our faux pas. The coach who is confident...
Coach Clients to their Emotional Honesty
One of the often misunderstood areas of coaching is how to coach clients to express their emotions appropriately, and how to handle the emotions of others. ICF core competency #4: Coaching Presence states that the coach, ādemonstrates confidence in working...
Be Curious About Client Meaning and Language
I recently attended a Panel Discussion at my local Performing Arts Center. The title of the discussion was, āDo the Arts Make Us Better People?ā The moderator started out by saying that we need to define what ābetterā means. She...
Go for Your Personal Best
The Winter Olympics are currently on in Sochi, Russia and Iām enthralled as usual with high performing athletes. These amazing athletes have a lot to teach us coaches, and our clients. One thing that always strikes me is the concept...
Listening and Coaching Presence
The way a coach listens to their client plays a huge role in the direction, and success, of a coaching session. Two of the ICF Core Competencies are particularly involved in listening. The first is core competency #4, Coaching Presence,...
Coach the Client not their Content
Coaches are usually passionate about learning, and that includes learning about their client. Sometimes coaches can become so interested in what the client presents as the topic they want to focus on, that the coach gets bogged down in the...
When a Question is not a Question – precision in coaching language
One of the most powerful coaching skills we have available to us as coaches is asking a question that has the potential to be powerful for the client. This may seem strange, but not every coach seems to know what...