By Kim Daglish
In my role as Director of Talent at Directioneering, I’ve met a lot of career coaches. Increasingly, it’s a career option that many explore at a point in their professional life where they feel particularly motivated to “pay it forward” by sharing their insights and experiences with others. But motivational alignment isn’t enough. There’s a very specific skill set that good coaches need to be effective, and not everyone is suited to the job.
What Makes a Good Coach?
Intrinsic Motivation to Help: A great coach has a genuine desire to help others. This intrinsic motivation is crucial because coaching can be demanding and emotionally taxing. If a coach isn’t genuinely interested in supporting others, it can be a struggle to provide the necessary commitment and energy.
Curiosity and Listening Skills: An effective coach knows how to listen actively and lean in at the right moments. They want to know their client’s story – not just in terms of their experiences and goals, but also how they feel about things. This genuine curiosity coupled with artful listening, creates the right dynamic to help the client have the necessary moments of clarity and insight essential for personal growth. It’s all about facilitating the “ah-ha” experience!
Empathic Understanding: Empathy is one of those terms that gets bandied about a bit, but the skill of empathic understanding, particularly in the context of career coaching, is essential. In this idea, the coach plays a crucial role in helping the client feel heard and understood. And we know that feeling heard and understood is incredibly powerful in processing emotion and shifting the brain to a neurological state where creativity, imagination, planning and problem solving can thrive.
What Makes a ‘Less Good’ Coach?
Motivational Fit: A ‘less good’ coach may lack the right motivation. If that intrinsic motivation to help others isn’t front and centre, not only will the coach struggle to get good outcomes for their clients, but they won’t enjoy doing it. For some, it can be a question of timing and not being ready to shift or split focus from achieving for oneself, to helping others achieve.
Coaching Skill as a Hygiene Factor: While coaching skills are essential, they are merely the baseline. A coach needs to go beyond just having coaching skills; their motivation and ability to connect are what truly make the difference.
The Art of Changing Hats
A successful coach wears multiple hats: the coaching hat, the expert hat and the trusted advisor hat. They need to be flexible and adapt their approach based on their client’s needs:
- Coaching Hat: Facilitating awareness and insights to enable the client to come up with their own solutions and tap into their own resources.
- Expert Hat: Offering advice based on the coach’s specific professional expertise and experience.
- Trusted Advisor Hat: Being a sounding board, and someone who pressure-tests their client’s ideas.
Finding a Coach
Know Thyself: The first step in finding a coach involves some self-reflection. Think about when you grew the most and who was there to support you. What qualities did they have that made the relationship fruitful?
Connection is Key: Trust and vulnerability are fundamental to a successful coaching relationship. You might need a coach who is warm and empathetic, or someone who is more structured and analytical. Understanding what style you respond best to helps ensure that you’ll get what you need from the relationship.
Rearview and Purpose: Consider both your past experiences and future goals. What do you need from a coach? It might be helpful to have multiple coaches for different things, such as behavioural change, building capability, relationship building, or wanting to be stretched.
Talk and Experiment: Talk to others who have been mentees and coaches. Be bold in your experimentation and be prepared for some relationships not to work out. In some ways, it’s similar to dating – it’s all about human connection and likability.
Diverse Superpowers: At Directioneering, we have a diverse range of coaches, each with their own superpower. Whether you need someone to challenge you, help you explore new ways of thinking, or build confidence, there’s a coach who can meet your needs.
Kim Daglish is a senior human resources professional with over 25 years experience in a broad range of HR and operational management roles. She brings a pragmatic, business perspective to her work, and has managed organisational and people development processes for large scale companies. Kim is meeting potential new coaches all the time, and is skilled at recruiting and training the very best coaches to meet the needs of the Directioneering clients.
