You As A Great Coach

By William Hendricks, Condensed from "Coaching, Mentoring, & Managing"

Successful coaches possess these 10 key values, plus the character and personality traits that make them effective.

YOUR team members all have different talents and skill levels - they’re all human with strengths, shortcomings, and personal lives that sometimes affect their ability to perform at what they do. Regardless of how difficult it may be at times, you as an upline and a coach are responsible for "winning" with that special mix of people, for keeping your people inspired, motivated, and working together toward common goals.
The greatest coaches are those who know how to motivate others to succeed, stay focused, believe in themselves, and overcome disappointments. Coaches inspire others to aim higher, work harder, and enjoy doing it.
To do so, first, you must want to be a coach. This shapes your attitude about being a coach, because people act on what they believe or "value." The most enlightening facts about great leadership are worthless until someone decides to actually apply these truths in what they do. And that happens when your upline believes there is potential "value" as a result of their actions.
Successful coaches typically exhibit the following 10 key values that can add to the many additional values of your own:-
Clarity. Successful coaches make sure they communicate clearly. If you fail to communicate clearly, people start to fail or do nothing - or worse, make assumptions. And assumptions cost time and money. To ensure clear communication, do not assume your team members know what you want.
Supportiveness. You want to stand behind the people in your team all the way, providing help they need, be it advice, information, materials, or just understanding and encouragement. It’s important to communicate your intention to be supportive. Let them know that honest mistakes/problems will only make the team stronger as you solve them together.
Confidence-building. Let your team know you believe in them and what they’re doing. Point to past successes, to individual and team accomplishments. Review with them the key to those successes and praise the commitment to excellence behind each victory.
Mutuality. Share a vision of common goals - take the time to explain your goals in detail. If you as a leader have goals that head one way and your people have goals heading another, the team will fall apart. All too often, staff don’t have clear-cut goals.
Perspective. This means seeing things from his/her perspective. Looking at people from the outside in too often results in labeling them. To understand what’s going on inside your people, ask. Don’t assume that you know what they’re thinking and feeling.
Risk. Risk is letting your team members know that it’s okay to fail. The only way you can grow is by taking risks. Some people who work on your team may do nothing because they are afraid - afraid that if they take a risk and fail, you’ll be upset. To be an effective coach, you must communicate that failure is not terminal, as long as everyone learns from it. Establish a clear, unthreatening way to deal with errors. Most successful people have failed, are failing, and will fail again. In a very real sense, it’s smart to get excited about failures - because only through failures can you learn, grow and be better down the road.
Patience. Every successful coach knows that time and patience are the keys to preventing a coach from simply "reacting." Sure, there are times when emergency, on-the-spot decisions must be made. But such times are surprisingly rare. Generally, you should avoid knee-jerk responses to unexpected situation, as this can undermine your associates’ confidence and ability to think and react. Build some time between the event and your responses to it.
Involvement. This means caring for someone enough to attempt to understand his/her experiences. It’s getting out from behind your desk and going to where your team member is and finding out what’s going on with them.
Confidentiality. This results when people demonstrate the rare ability to keep quiet. Some leaders talk when they should be silent. Most successful leaders are those who can keep certain things to themselves and not give away confidence. The moment you betray a confidence, trust is lost. And once you lose a team member’s trust, it’s almost impossible to get it back.
Respect. This involves the leader’s perceived attitude toward the individual he/she leads. You may respect your team members highly, but if they don’t perceive that value, it is contradicted by your failure to share goals, your unwillingness to become involved, your inability to exercise patience, you communicate disrespect. How far do you think can your team go together if its members feel the coach disdains them? If you answered "nowhere," you’re right!

SIX PITFALLS TO COACHING SUCCESS

Are you guilty of any of the following?
Talking at your team members, not with them. Often this approach is accompanied by the frequent use of words like "I want" and "You should."
Exaggerating situations/behavior. When you correct behavior using words like "always," "never," and "everybody," you automatically drag people down. Generalizations attack the self-esteem of the individual.
Talking about attitudes rather than behavior. When you criticize attitudes rather than behavior, you’re attacking self-esteem and begging for a defeated team.
Assuming the team member knows the problem and solution. If you assume the team member knows both the problem and the solution, you’re hurting the performance of the team. Assuming invariable costs time, money, and morale.
Never following up. If you fail to follow up on directions or performance, you will inevitably find yourself reacting to unpleasant surprises.
Not rewarding improved behavior. If you don’t reward positive changes in behavior, you will not gain permanent behavior changes.