What is coaching for success and is it the same in any setting or profession? Whether you are a career coach, life coach, corporate executive, business manager, or athletic coach, you have to place an emphasis on success.

Success has many different faces, meanings, and definitions. It can be about winning the game or championship, reaching goals, achieving specific sales totals, or beating the competition in some shape or form. But, what is coaching for success if success is so many different things to so many different groups or individuals?

What is Coaching For Success – 6 Fundamental Keys

No matter the setting, and no matter the definition of success, coaching for success crosses some common ground. The successful athletic coach shares some similarities with the successful executive. The respected and popular life coach shares some common ground with the business middle manager.

Here are six fundamental keys to answering the question: What is coaching for success?

• Build a Relationship Based on Trust. Trust is the foundation of any coaching or managerial success. If your clients, team members, or employees don’t feel a certain level of trust, they just won’t perform or improve at any beneficial levels. Trust matters
• Get Agreement. Whether in a meeting, on the playing field, or in a coaching session, agreement between coach and client (coach and player, manager and employee) on performance issues, goals, and strategic plans is crucial for success.
• Brainstorm Alternatives. There may be some venues where decisions are made from top to bottom (think of a college sports team – the coach sets the strategy and makes the decisions), but coaching/client relationships and many executive/employee relationships are based on identifying and creating alternate solutions to issues that make sense to both parties. Coaching are especially adept at this – their modus operandi is to help the client derive their own solutions.
• Commitment. No one has been successful unless there is a high level of commitment (unless you win the lottery or inherit a big chunk of money!). It takes commitment to a goal, a plan, or a vision to reach goals. What is coaching for successful achievement of goals without helping your client understand the value of commitment? It would be coaching for failure – lack of commitment equals lack of success.
• Deal with Excuses. We all have excuses and every coach or manager, whether on the playing field, in the boardroom, or in a coaching session, has heard plenty of them. A good coach will understand why an excuse was made, how to properly respond, and how to successfully negate that excuse and turn it in to a positive.
• Provide Feedback. Effective and successful coaches understand the importance and value of continual performance feedback, both positive and corrective. Frequent pats on the back are beneficial as well as critical and constructive reviews. Feedback should be timely, specific, sincere, and focus more on the “why” than the “what.” Feedback might be the most important answer when asking the question: What is coaching for success?”

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Fred Philips
Business Coach
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