From the previous research, I identified five major skills such as relationship building, active listening, goal setting, power, and confidentiality as essential in efficient coaching. For the process of coaching to be successful within an organization, one must master all these skills and employ them considerably throughout the process. I sought to apply these skills in my practice with the view of establishing my strengths and weakness. Therefore, I established that I was perfect in relationship building, active listening, and confidentiality worked, but I needed to improve on goal setting and power skills.
The success of my coaching was attributed to the three main skills that worked for me. First, I was able to build a strong relationship with my student. The ability to build relationships largely depends on one’s ability to show genuine interest in the person being coached and on particular issues that affect them (Cox & Jackson, 2010). Moreover, empathy is an important attribute required for building healthy and beneficial relationships. Through this experience, I managed to demonstrate a genuine concern by initiating conversations that sought to establish their major areas of interest. The strategy enabled me to create rapport with the person and win their trust.
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Moreover, I demonstrated empathy for the person by identifying with his weaknesses and showing them that I used to struggle with the same problem before. As such, I was able to forge a strong relationship with the person. Secondly, I demonstrated active listening through the process. While interrogating the person, I listened to his point of view attentively and showing great concern to the issues that he was raising. Active listening enables the coaches to understand the person and hence identify his strengths as well as weaknesses (Rogers, 2012). This largely facilitates the coaching session and the formulation of relevant strategies. From this experience, I also used to utilize active listening to understand the strengths as well as weaknesses of the person. Lastly, I maintained the confidentiality of my student. I did not tell anyone about the private information of the person. As such, I created trust, which greatly facilitated the coaching process. In addition to these skills, I will require to add goal setting and power skills to my repertoire.
The skills that I used are associated with several strengths as well as challenges. First, the major strength in the skill of relationship building is the fact that it enabled me to become close to my student and I was able to understand them better. In such a situation, coaches can monitor the progress of the person closely besides providing the relevant guidance to guarantee the success of the process (Zeus & Skiffington, 2000). Therefore, the skill brought me closer to my student. The major weakness of this approach is the fact that it threatened the power difference required for effective coaching. Close relationships may create contempt that hinders the power difference thereby hampering people’s ability to interact.
The major strength of active listening is that it enabled me to understand the strengths as well as weaknesses of the person I was coaching. Listening allows the coach to understand the person, evaluate their progress, and come up with relevant remedies (Cox & Jackson, 2010). However, listening presented the weakness of overexpression and deviation from the topic that warranted the coaching. Lastly, confidentiality had the major strength of winning the trust of the person I was coaching. However, it presented the weakness in the fact that I could not consult with another experienced coach on dealing with specific issues because I could not divulge their information.
Presently, I can adopt several strategies in order to enhance my coaching skills. First, I need to develop goal-setting skills as it enables me to set out the context and the measurable goals during my sessions (Zeus & Skiffington, 2000). Through my experience, I managed to set up concise and precise goals that I wanted to achieve during the session. However, evaluating the success of coaching was a challenge, and I will need to develop skills of power creation in the context of coaching. In such a case, a coach is expected to demonstrate a level of power over the person being coached if the coaching is to be successful (Rogers, 2012). In my case, I did so and managed to create a balance between creating a relationship and my power over him. I appreciated the need for me to develop a balance in skills between creating relationships and maintaining power between two parties for the process to succeed. In summary, this coaching experience created an opportunity for me to evaluate my coaching skills. With the experience, I was able to apply relationship building, listening, and confidentiality skills. In the future, I will need to improve power and goal setting skills to my coaching repertoire. Each of the skills that I applied has both strengths as well as weakness. The major development areas that I need to enhance my coaching capacity will include goal setting as well as maintaining power over the people that I coach.
References
Cox, E., & Jackson, P. (2010). Developmental coaching. The complete handbook of coaching , 217-230.
Rogers, J. (2012). Coaching skills: A handbook: A handbook . McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
Zeus, P., & Skiffington, S. (2000). The complete guide to coaching at work . McGraw Hill Professional.
