Coaching is partnering with a person, team, or organization (client) in a creative process to help the client reach their goals by unlocking their potential and understanding. A coach can accept the client as a whole, creative and competent person, and serve their agenda ethically.
Coaching has many different definitions; for example, Whitmore, J. (1992) simply states: “Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.” When working with an individual or system, we are helping them move forward in some way, helping them grow. Coaching people and systems are professions in their own right, and we encourage you to dig deeper into coaching as a profession using the links provided in the resource section. Professional bodies, such as the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC), support the overall principles of professional coaching.
Someone using Agile Coaching practices needs a strong foundation in coaching as the coachee often needs someone to create a constructive space to broaden and deepen their thinking to where they need to go. An essential aspect of using coaching practices is understanding when/when not to use a coaching approach.
Ethics are paramount to coaching. As an Agile Coach, you often provide an agenda for the client. The coach will always need to be aware of the type of coaching stance they are in to be within the guidelines of the different ethical standards.
Coaching Mindset
Being a Coach, you will have the beliefs, values and attitudes to take a coaching stance and work effectively with individuals and systems. It can be difficult for beginners to enter a coaching stance as you must often let go of skills and behaviors that have made you an expert. Below is a list of some attitudes and beliefs that a great coach will hold when taking a coaching stance:
- Coaching Ethics – Able to root your coaching mindset in ethics. Ethics are always in play when you are in your coaching stance.
- Individual Coaching Ethics – These ethics speak to what ethics are in play for individual coaching.
- System/Agile Coaching Ethics – These ethics speak to what ethics are in play in System/Team and Agile Coaching.
- Growth Mindset – Develop an authentic, open, curious, flexible mindset and honoring the client’s agenda.
- Authenticity – You behave ethically and have a strong belief and values system that holds the client in a non-judgemental and safe space.
- Learning – You recognize that a learning mindset is important to both the coach’s growth and the client’s growth
- Creating the right container to help unlock the coachee’s potential.
- Belief in the Coachee – that the client is capable and whole and growth is possible. Clients can achieve their own goals and do not need “fixing”.
- Neutrality – You respect the client’s perspective and needs without judgment. You do not influence and, instead, hold the client’s agenda. You reduce client dependence and work to enable the client to move forward independently.
- Adaptability – You are willing to let go of judgment and adapt to what the client needs in the moment.
- Coachee Focus – You believe that others learn best for themselves. People are naturally resourceful and whole with unlimited potential. They come to work to do the best they can and do not need rescuing from the decisions they make.
Competency Level Definitions:
1 Beginner
Coaching Ethics
- Summarize the different types and levels of coaching ethics and can speak to them.
- Demonstrate honesty and integrity in all interactions.
- Use language appropriate and respectful to clients.
Growth Mindset
- Explain what psychological safety is and why it is important.
- Recognize the power of coaching and the impact of coaching for themselves.
- Define what coaching is and what it may accomplish.
Belief in the Coachee
- Recognize that growth is possible for the client.
- Understand the importance of the client leading the direction of the conversation.
2 Advanced Beginner
Coaching Ethics
- Understand where to apply ethics when coaching in some scenarios.
- Maintain the distinctions between coaching, consulting, psychotherapy and other support professions.
- Understand that they may not have all the required skills and will refer coachees to other professionals as needed.
Growth Mindset
- Demonstrate the power of coaching by having regular coaching yourself.
- Able to stay in the coaching mindset most of the time.
- Understand that their clients are naturally creative, resourceful, whole and have unlimited potential. Therefore, they have the means to solve their challenges.
Belief in the Coachee
- Able to tease out the client’s agenda and focus the session by keeping the client on track to their agenda.
- Recognize that a coaching conversation is to help a client deepen/broaden their thinking and enable growth.
- Challenge the client to take steps to promote their learning and growth.
3 Practitioner
Coaching Ethics
- Able to recognize when ethics are not met and takes corrective actions to repair.
- Understand where to apply ethics in most scenarios.
- Refer clients to other kinds of support professionals, as appropriate.
Growth Mindset
- Demonstrate the power of coaching by doing regular reflective practices and regular coaching supervision or peer support.
- Engage in ongoing training and learning as a coach.
- Describe the differences between coaching an individual or a system.
- Exhibit curiosity and stays out of the judgment mindset.
Belief in the Coachee
- Practice providing acknowledgements of positive changes.
- Able to enable the client to move forward independently.
- Demonstrate self-awareness and intuition to help move the client forward.
4 Guide
Coaching Ethics
- Mentor others about ethics and when and where to apply them.
- Able to resolve ethical dilemmas.
Growth Mindset
- Foster a growth mindset in others.
- Create a safe space for failure in learning about the coach’s growth mindset.
Belief in the Coachee
- Maintain an objective, non-defensive, non-judgmental stance.
- Modify personal behavior and style to reflect the coachee’s needs.
5 Catalyst
Coaching Ethics
- Engage with the community about evolving ethics in coaching.
Growth Mindset
- Model a growth mindset in nearly all situations.
- Work with large-scale systems and communities to create awareness for the coaching mindset.
- Create opportunities for the world to experience a growth mindset.
Belief in the Coachee
- Model a behavior of neutrality which feels natural.
- Model the coachee’s beliefs by being a mirror back to them.
1 Beginner
2 Advanced Beginner
3 Practitioner
4 Guide
5 Catalyst
- Define what coaching ethics means to them.
- Explain what Physiological safety is and why it is important.
- Recognize the power of coaching and the impact of coaching for themselves.
- Recognize that growth is possible and people are naturally creative, resourceful, whole and have unlimited potential.
- Recognize that a coaching conversation is for the purpose of helping a client deepen/broaden their thinking and to enable growth.
- Understand the importance of the client leading the direction of the conversation.
- Apply coaching ethics when coaching.
- Demonstrate the power of coaching by having regular coaching yourself.
- Able to let the client set the agenda.
- Able to focus on the clients agenda, believe that your clients are naturally creative, resourceful, whole and have unlimited potential. Therefore, they have the means to solve their own challenges.
- Able to help the client create opportunities for learning and for taking new actions. Helps them explore alternatives, promotes experimentation and self-discovery, celebrates successes and capabilities, helps “do it now”.
- Apply coaching ethics as part of their everyday life.
- Demonstrate the power of coaching by having regular coaching supervision or peer support.
- Able to suspend judgment in regards to the clients perspective and their needs.
- Model unconditional positive regard, assume positive intent, people are always doing the best they can.
- Demonstrate the ability to help clients to believe in their potential and ability to change.
- Able to enable the client to move forward independently.
Guide level guidance will be provided in a future update.
Catalyst level guidance will be provided in a future update.
Coaching Skills
To be a successful coach is more than just adopting the right mindset. Coaching models leverage specific skills and capabilities that allow the coach to help the client deepen their thinking to where they need to go. Coaching skills are foundational techniques that you, as a Coach, can apply regardless of if you are working with an individual, a team, or an organization.
There are several approaches to one-on-one coaching, each of which may contain different models, practices, and tools that can help a coach given different contexts. Whichever tools a coach uses, they must co-create an effective relationship with the client and leverage their communication skills to cultivate learning and growth.
Coaching Systems looks at skills associated with coaching beyond individuals working with groups and relationships. There are many different approaches to coaching systems, each of which may contain different models, practices, and tools that can help a coach in the context of a system.
Both are included in the following areas:
- Coaching Environment
- Contracting – Understanding of the context for a specific coaching engagement and co-creating the agreement with the client to guide the coaching process and relationship.
- Presence – You are fully conscious and present with the client, employing an open, flexible, grounded and confident style. You can self-manage to stay fully present with the client, control your emotions and reactions, and stay out of judgment and in curiosity.
- Active Listening – You focus on what the client/system is and is not saying to understand what is being communicated.
- Building Rapport and Safety – You partner with the client (individual or system) to create a safe, supportive, confidential environment that allows the client to share freely. You maintain a relationship of mutual respect and trust.
- Coaching Process
- Coaching Conversations – Understands the coaching arc and can navigate across the different stages, including designing the alliance, identifying the agenda and the “real issue to be explored”, exploring the issue, and creating a commitment to action.
- Building Insights -You facilitate client insight and learning by using tools and techniques such as powerful questioning, silence, or metaphor
- Powerful Questions
- Metaphor/analogy
- Refection
- Bottomlining
- Clean language
- Forwarding the Action
- Exploring Actions – Ability to co-create with the coachee opportunities for ongoing learning, during coaching and in work/life situations, and for taking new actions that will most effectively lead to agreed-upon coaching results.
- Accountability – Hold attention on what is important for the coachee while leaving the responsibility with the coachee to take action.
Competency Level Definitions:
1 Beginner
Coaching Environment
- Understand the importance of a coaching contract and what it should contain. (e.g. the role of the coach, duration, expectations, feedback, responsibilities).
- Explain how coaching a team differs from coaching an individual.
- Recognize confidentiality as a basis for the coaching conversation.
- Describe notable aspects of a coaching environment.
Coaching Process
- Explain the different levels of listening.
- Explain the shape of a coaching conversation.
- Describe powerful questions.
Forwarding the Action
- Summarize an observed coaching conversation.
2 Advanced Beginner
Coaching Environment
- Identify the coachee’s agenda.
- Apply a basic coaching agreement and contract.
- Discuss how to coach the Team and Systems as a single entity.
Coaching Process
- Summarize the coachee’s assumptions, behaviors, and mindset.
- Recognize when they are no longer actively listening and are listening to respond.
- Ask powerful questions that evoke discovery and insight, challenge assumptions, are open-ended, forward-looking and pre-supposing success.
Forwarding the Action
- Articulate the coachee’s needs.
- Creates an accountability plan with the coachee.
3 Practitioner
Coaching Environment
- Contrast different methods to develop, maintain, and reflect on agreements and goals with individuals and (the) system(s).
- Practice encouraging individuals and system members to pause and reflect on their interactions and behavior in the coaching sessions.
- Understand the unique needs of individuals and systems based on the stage of development.
Coaching Process
- Identify the coaching tools needed to help the coachee reach their goals.
- Able to reorient and refocus the coaching conversation in service of the coachee’s agenda.
- Reflect on body language, words, tone and energy through active listening in service of the coachee.
- Illustrate how to coach teams and Systems as a single entity.
Forwarding the Action
- Understand the client’s insights and guide them to further their agenda.
- Create an accountability plan where the coachee drives the actions.
4 Guide
Coaching Environment
- Build and maintain a resilient learning environment.
- Create opportunities for individuals and systems to reflect and grow coaching skills.
- Adapt coaching environment based on individuals or systems stage of development.
Coaching Process
- Demonstrate how to challenge the individuals’ and systems’ assumptions, behaviors, and mindset to enhance their collective awareness and insight.
- Able to focus on what the client is/is not saying to understand the meaning of what is said, e.g. client’s agenda, concerns, values, beliefs, summarize and mirror back without judgment.
- Appraise how the perspectives shared by individuals within the system relate to others’ views and dialogues.
Forwarding the Action
- Drive the coachee to explore previously unseen areas and build new insights.
- Choose to let go of the actions and accountability and enable the coachee to own them fully.
5 Catalyst
Coaching Environment
- Build new approaches to create and maintain a safe space for open and honest interactions to help create a high-performing environment.
Coaching Process
- Reflect the hidden qualities and undercurrents to the individual or system to generate deep insights.
- Invent and modifies practices to match the context and publish the result.
Forwarding the Action
- Naturally challenge the coachee to draw on wisdom for action from within through collaboration, experimentation, and their wider system.
1 Beginner
2 Advanced Beginner
3 Practitioner
4 Guide
5 Catalyst
- Understand the importance of a coaching contract, and what it should contain. (e.g. role of the coach, duration, expectations, feedback, responsibilities).
- Recognize confidentiality as a basis for the coaching conversation.
- Understand the importance that listening plays in good communication.
- Explain at least one coaching tool/technique and be aware of the benefits.
- Understand the importance of using powerful questions and silence to create space for client thinking and expression.
- Practice partnering with individuals and (the) systems to develop, maintain, and reflect on agreements and goals.
- Explain how you can encourage individuals and system members to pause and reflect on how they are interacting and behaving in the coaching sessions.
- Able to formulate a basic coaching agreement and contract.
- Explain how to challenge the individuals’ and systems’ assumptions, behaviors, and mindset, to enhance their collective awareness and insight.
- Recognize a situation in which you would intervene to reorient the conversation and your reasoning to intervene.
- Able to actively listen, without trying to solve the clients problem some of the time.
- Apply at least three coaching techniques and describe how the coaching technique impacted each interaction.
- Ask powerful questions for maximum impact, that evoke discovery and insight, challenge assumptions, are open-ended, forward-looking and pre-supposing success.
- Apply two or more tools or techniques to support psychological safety in a one on one coaching session
- Contrast at least 2 methods to develop, maintain, and reflect on agreements and goals with individuals and (the) system(s).
- Practice intervening in the conversation to reorient it and reflect on which interventions were appropriate.
- Practice encouraging individuals and system members to pause and reflect on how they are interacting and behaving in the coaching sessions.
- Practice at least 3 ways to encourage individuals and the system to own the dialogue.
- Demonstrate a situation where you intervened to reorient the conversation and your reasoning.
- Able to actively listen, reflect and mirror body language, words, tone and energy.
- Compare coaching approaches and how they best serve the client.
- Analyze three coaching tools and how they can be used to help a team grow, explain how you have used one of the tools in the past.
- Apply two or more tools or techniques to support psychological safety in a systemic coaching session.
Guide level guidance will be provided in a future update.
Catalyst level guidance will be provided in a future update.