Coaching is relational and requires commitment, time, candor, chemistry and trust. First, a coach must be able to practice empathy with their clients. Empathy helps coaches to be in tune with their clients to fully listen to what they say and detect the feelings behind what they say. Any coaching relationship requires transparency and honesty to work in the long term.
When you ask them discovery questions, they should be open to fully listening to your questions and to answering honestly. If they want you to help them, they have to be willing to put their heart on the table. But honesty is just as important to you as well. Your coaching clients won't achieve significant transformations if you stick to the truth.
Do you maintain your moral and ethical principles and values? That's what integrity is all about. And it's critical to developing healthy coaching relationships. Coaching with integrity should involve doing what's right for your clients. For example, you shouldn't try to automatically sell your clients one of your high-end coaching packages just because you want to increase your revenue this month.
On the other hand, training with integrity means that you'll guide your clients to the type of support they need most to be successful at this point in their lives. Integrity in coaching relationships also means that you keep your word. Don't promise anything to a customer if you're not 100% sure that you can keep that promise. Trustworthiness is paramount to any relationship, but it's especially important for a coaching relationship.
If your client needs to open their heart to you honestly, you should be able to trust that your sessions are a safe place to express themselves without judgment. You can't progress in training if you don't really believe that your coach is highly competent, trained by experts and an honest player. Clients who continuously reschedule, cancel, or arrive late for coaching sessions don't respect the training process. One way to simplify communication between you and your coaching clients is to implement an all-in-one training software like Paperbell.
While there's no substitute for training coaches, training certification, or advancing your education, building stronger relationships is critical to training success. This is more of a habit than a training skill, but it ensures that you always provide powerful, high-quality training to each of your clients. A coach may have experience as a player in his career; however, to be a successful coach he needs specific experience and in-depth knowledge of the game.
