Styles of Coaching
T V Rao
Based on personal reflections of working with
performance coaching and counselling
Coaching is a form of interpersonal conversation
where one person (Coach) tries to influence the second person (Coachee or Coached).
There is group coaching and team coaching possible, but I will restrict myself
to two person coaching - formal or informal. Formal coaching can be paid,
system driven (example performance coaching, career coaching) and more
organised, while informal coaching is unplanned and can even happen between two
people without time lines and even acknowledging. Many conversations in our
families, schools, colleges, organisations and communities are informal and all
the time happening and some of these could be coaching conversations.
The essential component of coaching is “communicating
to influence”. One person tries to influence the other consciously or less
consciously. I will restrict myself to formal coaching in this note. The purpose
of coaching is to help the “Coached” or the “Coachee” to make choices and solve
his/her own problems, issues, dilemmas, conflicts, stress situations etc. and
get the best out of self or emerge as better than before (more effective,
happy, integrated, contented, powerful, empowered, peaceful, balanced,
motivated, energised etc.).
The following ten categories of behaviours are
exhibited by a Coach in coaching the coached. They are not always
mutually exclusive and may occur in combinations. These are:
1.
Listening:
Actively listening to understand the issue or perspective. For this the Coach
has to pay undivided attention to hear and also interpret the situation or experience
the way the coachee experienced or experiencing or perceiving the situation or
events. Listening involves listening to what is said and the feelings behind
what is said (stated and unstated). Passive listening while may have a
cathartic value does not help this. Listening with empathy and listening to
feelings is a critical skill. For this other behaviours like probing may need
to be used.
2.
Probing
(asking questions, seeking information or explanations etc.):
In this the Coach attempts to understand by asking questions and details the
way the Coachee perceives and interprets his/her work, life, events, situation,
people etc. that are of significance to the Coached. This essentially depends
on the agenda set for the session or the series mutually by both or singularly
by the Coached.
3.
Reflecting
or mirroring: This is a great tool in helping the Coach as
well as the Coached understand the situation as he/she experienced. Mirroring
is a mere paraphrasing of what has been said or feelings with which it has been
said. It clarifies and helps the coach and coached to levelling or attaining a
shared understanding.
4.
Exploring (generating
or help generate alternatives): This goes beyond probing and asking questions. This
can occur at three stages- in the beginning of conversation for understanding of
the situation. In mid-course for generating alternate interpretations and
exploring possibilities that enhance understanding of the situation and events.
It could be at the end of the conversation for generating or an exploring
alternative solutions, actions, behaviours etc. to be adopted by the Coached. In
probing normally the coach plays a lead role while in exploring c the coach
plays a suggestive role. Exploration can also be joint and sometimes
facilitated by the coach and coachee driven.
5.
Appreciating
and Empathising: Empathising is putting one-self into the shoes
of the other and communicating how the Coach is in tune with the coached. It involves accepting and sharing the feelings
and interpretations of the coachee and (not necessarily approving or
disapproving). This is essentially used to create a feeling of acceptance and
unburdens the coached. This can be done at any point of coaching conversation.
It helps build rapport. Sometimes the coach may share his/her own experiences or
stories to support, mirror or reflect the actions and feelings of the coached. Appreciating and empathising helps making the
coachee “feel, seen and heard” and experience unconditional positive regard in
the conversation.
6.
Generating
alternatives or help generate alternatives: This is normally
during action planning stage. This could be done by the Coached or Coach or
both. It creates a sense of ownership if the Coached plays an active part in
generating alternatives and the Coach merely helps generate alternatives.
7.
Hypothesising:
This again may take place at different stages: interpretation of the past
events to help coached appreciate others’ and gain clarity of the situation. It
may also be used for anticipating the likely consequences of future actions or behaviours
by the Coached.
8.
Guiding
(suggesting): In this the Coach suggests preferred solutions and
likely consequences and helps the coached to make choices.
9.
Directing
(indicating the desirable actions): In this the Coach gives
based on experience or the coaching conversation, clear cut actions to be
undertaken by the Coached. Leaves little freedom for the Coached to choose.
10.
Reprimanding
or Threatening: This is
expressing by the coach anger, disappointment and disapproval of actions,
behaviours, proposals, plans etc. of the coachee. This includes pointing out
the undesirable consequences of actions or events and reprimanding. In this the
Coach points out to the negative consequences of not doing or doing or showing a
particular action or behaviour. For example a friend of mine who was coaching a
difficult client (coachee), after a series of coaching sessions observed that
his coachee had no respect for his time and was always late or skipped his
appointments. To teach him a lesson my
friend shifted the venue from the client’s office to his own office and made him
wait for a long time. When the coachee felt angry, my friend indicated to him
that this was done deliberately to make him experience the reaction he has been
generating in the coach and recounted the number of people the coachee has
offended with his behaviour. Later my
coach friend also threatened to end the coaching contract. .
Coaches use a mix of all these. However some
coaches may get stuck in one or more forms unconsciously and may over a period
of time develop their own unique style.
Directive Coaches use categories 9 and 10 more.
Non-Directive coaches use categories 1 to 8 more.
It is possible to observe or record a coaching
session and analyse which category a Coach has used and how frequently. It is
possible to come up with Directive and Non-Directive influence ratios by
counting the number of times or amount of time used in Directive or
non-directive coaching style. It is also possible to assess “Coaching
Dominance” ratios by calculating the time spent by the coach versus the
coached. I expect in future technological developments and AI applications will
make it possible to have assessments of “terms used” (I suggest, let us
explore, I think you.., why did you? Do
you understand... etc.?) and classify them into Directive and
Non-Directive coaching styles. It is also useful to analyse the self-directed
talk and Coach-initiated talk in each conversation. This gives insights into
the openness and efforts to be put in to draw the coaches out into
conversations. Personally I am not a believer in machines substituting humans
for coaching. However the way the world is changing to digitisation, anything
may be a possible and we could soon have coaching machines.
Listening
coaches use this style of listening patiently to their coachees
as they believe the purpose of coaching is to let the coachee freely express
themselves. For them coaching is catharsis. Such coaches learn a lot about
their coachees and the coached may get a feeling of being accepted, listened to
and even understood. Such coaching helps build self-acceptance of the Coachee.
Such style may not lead to action plans and in the event of action plans the coach
chees feels more responsible as no ideas of the Coach were generated. This is
an effective style of coaching. It has the risk of the Coach losing interest if
there is only passive listening.
Probing
coaches use categories 2 and 3 more liberally and
frequently. They spend excessive time and effort in understanding and
exploring. They are good at asking questions. Probing is a good way to go
deeper into the psyche of the coachee and could result in a good diagnosis of
the problems, issues and interpretations. Sometimes it has the risk of putting
the coachee into a defensive mode. It could also divert attention from real
issues and ends up as a game of questioning and responding. F Good q Coaches
need to periodically review their style of probing and questions. Reflective
questions are good and information seeking questions are useful only when the
coachee is reluctant to get into details.
Empathetic
coaches use categories 4 and 5 more frequently. They tend
to share their experiences more frequently and keep confronting the coached
with their own examples and illustrations to agree and empathise with the
coached. Empathetic coaches also build higher levels of self-acceptance and
create open climate for coaching.
Action
driven coaches use categories 6, 7 and 8 more frequently and
would like action plans to be formulated soon. In commercial coaching this may
become a preoccupation of the Coaches in their eagerness to show change.
Directive
coaches use categories more of 9 and 10 categories. This may be needed when the coachee
is highly dependent and seeks solutions from the Coach. Normally most coaching
theories discourage this as it does not build the independent decision making
and sense of responsibility on the part of the coachee. However if the Coach
has a mentoring role to play and the coachee is very new in early stages it may
be useful to use this. Category 10 is not a desirable style as it could lead to
many relationship issues. If the Coach has a mentoring and supervisory
relationship with the Coachee it could be selectively sued but it may cease to
be called c coaching and might end up as “Executive Action”. In good coaching
situations it is better to avoid this.
This
note is meant to create awareness in coaches of their own styles and make them
more sensitive to unconscious sue of patterns in coaching which may become
eventually styles.
Suggested
readings:
https://www.academia.edu/5712360/Performance_coaching
Pareek, U., & Rao, T. V. (1995). Counselling and Helping
Entrepreneurs. The Journal of Entrepreneurship, 4(1),
19–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/097135579500400102
