The new coach is often told that accountability is about getting people to do what they know they should do, but that they don’t want to do. Well that is less than half the story. Unexpected insights can cause a client of strategy coaching or assessment to see themselves in a whole new light that brings lasting change – transformation – so to accountability coaching can bring unexpected insights, lasting change and transformation.

Acknowledging a higher Standard Is the Doorway to Transformation

Accountability coaching is about adopting and holding oneself to a much higher standard than our society generally recognizes. By acknowledging the higher standard, one accepts the possibility of actually achieving it. In parallel with not recognizing the existence of a standard of achievement that is well beyond what people seriously intend to achieve, people in our society simply do not take the achievement of greatness seriously. Let’s face it: mediocrity has become the standard of “excellence”!

Helping Clients Limit Their Commitments Is the first Step to Achievement

The new coach must understand that a half-hearted commitment to ten things is the enemy of actually committing to, and achieving one or two things. And that the magnitude of the tasks is secondary to actually selecting, committing to and finally achieving one or two tasks. It is all about a change in our state of mind, and accepting the mantel of potential greatness.

The New Coach Must Be Courageous and Brutal in Their Expectations

Particularly as a new coach, it is easy to doubt one’s self, and to question the practicality of asking a person to be more committed, to work harder and to not be satisfied with less than excellence. Fortunately, it only takes one experience of a client rising above mediocrity and achieving results greater than might have seemed realistic, to understand the greatness that each of us has inside, and the positive impact that committed individuals and groups of individuals can have upon our world!

Hope you took some great value out of this post today! I’d love to hear your feedback, so make sure you leave a comment with your thoughts or questions. And also, you can click on the Twitter button below to retweet this article… Thank you!

Dave Iuppa
JTS Advisors Strategy and Accountability Coach