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How to develop workplace coaches

By Carol Wilson (July 2005 Issue)
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What is a coach?

There is nothing new or mystifying about coaching – it is simply a style of communication which engenders trust, mutual support, personal growth and great leadership. Some natural coaches learn their skills through the good fortune of being born to parents who are natural coaches. Others have teachers or later mentors as their role models.

I spent the first ten years of my career working with one of the world’s most famous natural coaches, Richard Branson, setting up and running some of the original Virgin companies. The coaching principles of openness, positive feedback, ownership and a blame-free culture were core values at Virgin, decades before the word ‘coaching’ was applied in its current sense. A few years earlier, Socrates also recommended coaching skills – although I don’t believe the words ‘executive coach’ are specifically mentioned in his writings! References to the skills have popped up in various forms many times since.

The core principles of a coaching culture are:

  • Positive feedback
  • Ownership
  • A blame free environment

Good coach training should focus significantly in these areas, together with listening skills, questioning skills, and learning to focus on the coachee’s agenda.

 

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