I have been asked, quite often, “can anyone be a coach?” My view is that, as it is a skills-based activity, then it can definitely be learned.
So that begs the question of which coaching skills need to be learned. This article explores our beliefs about the skills to learn, and indeed reflects what we teach on our coach training programmes.
If you’re reading this and you’re a coach, stop and write your list before reading on. Then compare it with ours, below.
Coaches – start with the skills you already have
One of the most important things that new coaches need to know is that they already are likely to have plenty of coaching skills. There is a huge overlap between the skills of a good coach and a good: team leader, team member, parent, partner, son/daughter, friend, neighbour. It frustrates me when coaching is presented as if it some sort of set of Liam Neeson style set of special skills. At an advanced level, sure, there are things that take time to develop.
But for most of us coaches, we start our coaching journey with plenty of skills already in place.
Core coaching skills to build first
We break down coaching skills into three categories. Here’s the first – the foundation skills needed in order to start coaching someone. They are:
Questioning: being able to ask focused, exploratory, other person centred and neutral questions. We all ask questions, so it’s normally a case of turning ourselves into even better questioners.
Listening: arguably the number one skill. Giving people the time and space to talk freely and listening to what they say. Really listening. Not just queueing up for our turn to speak.
Pausing: getting comfortable with silence. A sense of calmness when your coachee thinks, reflects and doesn’t talk. Read more about the power of pausing in a coaching conversation.
Holding back from offering advice: the biggie for many managers. How to deprive someone of our hard-earned wisdom. It is the main shift that we see in coaches in training – the gradual realisation that outside of emergency situations, it is much more powerful to let coachees own their own ideas.
Structuring sessions: when all those skills are in place, we are able to have a well-structured conversation. It’s likely to have a coachee selected topic at the beginning, some deep exploration in the middle, and moving to clear actions towards the end.
If these skills are firmly in place, these will allow you to do good workplace and everyday coaching. And to do more intense work, getting all of the skills to a more advanced level will take you a long way towards that goal.
Advanced coaching skills for deeper work
Once the essential skills are in place, we can start considering skills that help us move towards a higher level of competency. Not an exhaustive list, but these are the main ones, I think.
Thematic listening: being able to hear not just the words, but the underlying themes, the beliefs, attitudes and awareness’s of the coachee. There starts to be a slowing down of the conversation as we start to hear these.
Respectful challenge: all coaching has a challenging element. The coachee is always in the spotlight, and can’t deflect by saying “what about you – how was your week?” So, it may take some time before coaches start to bring challenge into their work. Getting the balance right between being challenging but respectful, and not being too mild, nor too harsh, can take some practice. It certainly did for me.
Managing strong emotions: good coaching may give the space for our coachee to express themselves strongly. There may be tears, frustration, even anger. And as coaches, we don’t sit there passively waiting for the emotion to pass. Nor do we panic and feel that we have to change direction. We respond and create a comfortable environment so that our coachee feels free to be how they need to be.
Managing self: this can sound a bit robotic – it isn’t meant to. Things like being brief when we talk, holding back from sharing, not worrying all the time whether we are doing a good job or not, relaxing into the coach role. Self-management encompasses a whole bunch of skills.
Empathy: this probably starts right from the beginning. At first, coaches are often overly empathetic, which may involve a little rescuing and offering strokes to our coachee. Very kind, but it may minimise the exploration for the coachee. At a more advanced stage, the coach is more able to balance being warm and caring, and yet quite grounded and neutral. That allows the coachee to be themselves.
Brevity, in both questions and summarising. This is a technical skill, and is well worth investing in. Being brief, but still being clear, and still being warm and caring, is something that advanced coaches are able to move towards.
Curiosity, and non-judgementalism: listening to coaches who have some experience, and these things are often evident. Curiosity allows the coach to explore the themes that are emerging without imagining the answers or predicting the problem. And being non-judgemental links to care, compassion and the notion of unconditional positive regard. Whatever the coachee is grappling with is something that is important to them, and as they don’t yet have a clear pathway, they need to explore it in a non-judgemental space.
These will allow you to coach in challenging circumstances and for challenged people, as well as for people with bigger goals and programmes.
Ready to develop your coaching skills further?
These lists are the main skills, but of course there are plenty of other ones that are useful for coaches. Do write your own lists too, and see which extra skills you would like to add in. And the good news, I think, is that they are all learnable. Enjoy working on your skills, be confident that many are in place, and any new ones are within your gift to be learned.
If you want to build these skills in a structured way, our ILM Level 3 Certificate in Workplace Coaching is designed for exactly this – taking the skills you already have and giving them shape, depth and confidence. Take a look at our coach training and ILM coaching qualifications page for the full range of options.
