Good Practice in Coaching

Much has been written over the years regarding coaching and the various models that can be used to facilitate it. Each model has its own process and flow, but the end point remains the same for them all. Ensuring coaching sessions are successful and coachees achieve their desired goal and ultimately there potential. As has been mentioned in other insights and hot topics, coaches will naturally develop their own style over time, identifying which model or tool will work for which scenario or coachee, but how does that help to determine what good looks like. In her book ‘best practice in performance coaching’ Carol Wilson suggests that coaching can in fact be broken down into seven principles, principles that can then be applied to any model or tool that is being used.

These principles can be viewed as the basis for good practice within coaching:

1. Awareness. This is a two-fold issue. It is the responsibility of the coach to raise the levels of awareness of their coachee, regarding their own emotional intelligence and their performance and their true potential. Whilst doing this, a coach must also be the exemplar and be fully aware of their own emotional state and how their beliefs and viewpoints may impact the relationship.
2. Responsibility. For coaching to be successful then the coachee must take responsibility for agreed actions and areas for development, it is down to the coach to facilitate this. Coaches also bare responsibility towards their clients, they are responsible for safeguarding and the welfare of their coachees and for creating an environment that fosters trust and honesty.
3. Self-belief. Coaching should be built around the positive, focussing on what people are capable of rather than looking only at what hasn’t been achieved. Coaching sessions should always be focussed on building up the coachee.
4. Blame-free. It is essential that coachees take responsibility, however, there is a duty to do this in a blame free environment. It is not within a coaches remit to apportion blame upon a client, if a coach creates a judgmental environment, then this will severely impact the relationship and hamper any chance of meaningful development taking place.
5. Solution focus. This is where the coach keeps the client focussed on the future, how the issue or problem can be fixed rather than dwelling on the problem itself. This allows the sessions to keep momentum, so the client feels as though progress is being made rather than dwelling on things in the past. Reflection is important but it is not where we should live our lives.
6. Challenge. Not only is a coach there to support but they are there to deliver challenge in a positive environment. If a coachee is pushed to set challenging goals, setting higher standards than they are perhaps used to, then it is easier to still achieve a positive result should the outcome be not quite what was envisaged. It also important for a coach to challenge clients to look at things form differing viewpoints, giving them the space to step back and fully evaluate the situation.
7. Action. Coaching can uncover new viewpoints and new perspectives, as a coachee gains this new level of insight then more options are presented to them on their development pathway. It is down to the coach to turn this new level of understanding and energy into firm action and to keep the client focussed on the journey ahead.

The principles above are of course the viewpoint of one highly experienced and very well thought of professional coach, and if used will be a highly beneficial guide as to how coaching should be approached and how it should be focussed. in terms of best practice, there are also codes of ethics from several professional bodies that should be viewed as key principles for coaches to be aware of.

For example, the International Coaching Federation (ICF) have four core values: Professionalism, Collaboration, Humanity and Equity. These four values are then linked to the organisations code of ethics. These are then broken down into sections, with the first being Responsibility to Clients. This focuses on contracting and confidentiality and managing conflicts of interest, looking more at the practical elements of how a coach will work with clients. The second section is Responsibility to Practice and Performance, which starts with ensuring adherence to the code of ethics and ensuring excellence., whilst also holding other coaches to the same standards. Section three, Responsibility to Professionalism, references coaches identifying their own level of qualification and ensuring verbal and written statements accurately reflect what the coach can offer. This section looks at coaches behaving in a professional manner at all times. Section four, Responsibility to Society, focusses on equality and diversity and honouring intellectual property and following the philosophy of ‘doing good’.

The paragraph above is a very brief description of the code of ethics of the ICF and other professional bodies such as the European Coaching and Mentoring Council (EMCC) will have their own take on the above that they will expect their members to be well versed in and adhere to. What this does highlight is the importance of behaving in a professional and ethical way. Although there is no current regulation of the coaching industry, it is a highly competitive market and membership of a professional body goes a long way to demonstrating competency and these organisations take their code of ethics very seriously.