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In the last edition of Leadership Helps, we learned that few people climb to the top of the mountain alone. They need a guide and individual training. If the mountain is high enough, we all need someone to help us get to the top.
Good leadership is the same. Through the years, I’ve been blessed with incredible coaches and mentors. I hope you have, too. If not, they are out there and closer than you may think.
However, there is a difference between coaching and mentoring. Review the detailed list of the differences between coaching and mentoring given in Part One.
Before we begin looking at the last five skills in the seven skills, here’s some helpful guidance.
Advice for all who coach:
- Keep growing. The best coaches continue to excel in their field.
- Keep knowing your heart’s motivation; why do you coach others?
- Keep showing genuine care for those you invest in. That always increases your impact.
Seven Skills the Best Coaches Use:
- Keep the relationship genuine.
- Make expectations clear.
Let’s complete the seven skills the best coaches use.
- Get on their agenda.
In keeping with the idea of expectations, connect that to a continuing agenda. What few people know about expectations is that they can change over time.
Good coaching can result in updated expectations. When someone grows, they change, and when they change, some of their expectations will change. The best coaches adjust to the change.
The key to making that work is two-fold. First, as a coach, keep growing yourself, and second, remain on their agenda!
Coaching isn’t a program; it’s a process. It follows the ebb and flow of life and needs adjustments.
Continually keep abreast with their expectations.
- What do they want?
- Where are they headed?
- What do they need?
- Practice instinctive rather than direct conversation.
The best coaches use intuitive conversations that begin with one healthy and purposeful question. It is followed by careful and prayerful listening that cultivates wise counsel and brings about the next intentional question.
While having a list of prepared questions is often useful, it’s seldom as helpful as questions that occur “in the moment” as the conversation evolves. This skill helps prevent a more anticipated conversation and includes reading between the lines. You can extend permission to answer honestly in a safe environment.
- Present measured growth challenges.
A great coach knows how to gauge the extent and frequency of challenges they present to the person they coach. If the challenges are too small, they will get bored (and won’t grow). If the challenges are too much, they can become discouraged.
If you’re a parent, you have an intuitive sense of this—just enough challenge for your child to stretch, but not so much that they feel defeated.
- Give honest feedback.
Giving honest yet kind feedback is one of the most careful skills any coach can use. Most coaches lean either a little toward “easy” or a little toward “tough.” Knowing your predisposition helps you find a healthier balance.
Honest feedback also embraces timing, tone, technique, and life experience. For example, if the person you’re coaching is going through a tough time personally, that’s not the time to move forward.
While it seems simple, if you don’t properly discern what’s happening in their life, you will miss cues on how to coach appropriately.
In general, most coaches are often too easy. The truth is those we coach can take it. Always be kind, but it doesn’t benefit anyone if you aren’t direct and speak the truth.
Those who coach best are intentionally straightforward and speak the truth in love, and those they coach are grateful for it. Just dip your arrows in honey before you shoot them!
- Pay attention.
My personal (short) definition of great coaching is “pay attention.”
If a coach remains in the game, is invested at a heart-level, and puts think-time into his coaching skills, then “paying attention” to words, behaviors, habits, and patterns reveals precisely what you need to coach effectively.
If you listen carefully, you can deliver the right words to the right person at the right moment – and become a great coach.
The best coaches will always add value in critical moments of a person’s life. Every meeting is not dramatic or life-altering; it’s the cumulative effect of paying attention over a long period that produces excellent results.
Keep in mind some of the outstanding coaches and mentors in Scripture under the principle of disciple-making, and follow their example! People like Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, Paul and Timothy. And the perfect Model – Jesus and His disciples.
