Not All Coaches are Created Equal

Category: Strong Opinion

With dozens of coaching schools and hundreds of new coaches graduating every few months, I've been concerned about the kinds of coaches we're going to be seeing in years to come.

I truly believe that not everyone is born to be a coach, and that it takes certain personality traits to be a good one.

I am in touch with hundreds of coaches on a regular basis, through my writing, teleclasses, coaching, consulting, joint ventures, etc. and there are certain things that bother me when I spot them in coaches. Here they are:

- Talking just for the sake of talking. It seems to me they like hearing themselves talk, without providing insightful information to the client.

- Overlapping with and interrupting a client. This is beyond a lack of listening skills. When a client is talking and trying to express their concerns, I think it's incredibly rude to interrupt. Or, if a coach is talking and a client is trying to say something, the coach just won't stop talking and makes the client feel ignored.

- Asking ambiguous questions. Questions that mean nothing to the client, and so the answers they give are even more ambiguous.

- Coaching clients on issues the coach is struggling with herself. If you're a relationship coach without a relationship, please send your clients away to another coach. It's hypocritical and goes against being authentic.

I was curious about what it really takes for a coach to be a good coach, and after Larina Kase developed 20 coaching assessments for me, I asked her to develop another one - "Are You a Natural Born Coach?", which I think really makes you look at your being a coach from a different perspective.

Every coach has a different style, and some may talk more than listen, but as long as they say things that inspire and motivate, and ask questions that really make a light bulb go "on" in a client's head, I am happy. No...the CLIENT is happy!