Posts with the category “coach-well”

Whether you're coaching individuals, groups, or teams, is important to discover before the start of a coaching relationship if your clients are ready to be coached. This can often be hard to assess. Listed below are five traits I pay particular attention to when seeking to discern if a client is ready.1 | ENGAGEMENTI look for clients that exhibit energy. They are willing to dive into conversation,...  Read More

By Jim LaDoux Curiosity is often seen as a childlike quality, but it is a key skill in developing a successful life and career. It allows us to continually learn and grow and is essential for innovation and problem-solving. Curiosity can help evoke new awareness and seek to draw out the dreams and imaginations of your clients. In this post, we will explore the benefits of developing the skill of c...  Read More

By Jim LaDoux Change is inevitable, and yet it is one of the most challenging things that individuals, teams, and organizations face. Change challenges the status quo and alters the current reality, and once implemented, you cannot go back. But why is it so difficult to embrace change? Resistance to change occurs because we are afraid of the unknown, leading to anxiety and conflict. As a coach, yo...  Read More

By Jim LaDoux Creating new habits can be a challenging task, but with the right guidance and mindset, you can successfully achieve it. A book many people have found helpful in learning how to change habits is James Clear's Atomic Habits. As a leader or a coach, consider how the information below can help people you interact with create new habits that help them be more grateful, more focused, more...  Read More

By Jim LaDoux and Felix Villanueva Coaching has been proven to be a powerful tool for individuals to achieve their personal and professional goals. As a coach, one of your primary responsibilities is to help your clients gain clarity and move forward towards their desired outcomes. However, it can be challenging to ensure that your clients are getting the most out of their coaching sessions. That’...  Read More

By Jim LaDoux and Felix Villanueva As a coach, your goal is to help people overcome their limitations, but sometimes, you face limitations too. Building a coaching network can be challenging, especially when you're just starting. It's common to think that you're not ready to expand your reach or that you don't have enough resources to do so. However, these are limiting beliefs that are holding you...  Read More

By Jim LaDoux As a new coach, building a solid client base can feel overwhelming. You may find yourself struggling with the question of, "How do I get clients?" But don't worry, there are several effective strategies that you can use to expand your outreach and increase your coaching client base. In this blog post, we'll cover some of the most helpful tips to help you get started. Identifying your...  Read More

Co-active Coaching is a great resource that focuses on how the coach and the coachee work together for the sake of the coachee’s agenda. It explores the subtexts to every conversation that include assumptions, expectations, and unspoken agreements. It brings together the essential human qualities of being and doing:Who we are.Who we are in relationship.Who we are being and want to be.How we are ac...  Read More

The book, Unlocking Potential: 7 Coaching Skills that Transform Individuals, Team, and Organizations, highlights four key themes - trust, potential, commitment, and execution. In addition, the authorexpounds on the following 7 coaching skills: 1) Build trust, 2) Challenge paradigms, 3) Seek strategic clarity, 4) Execute flawlessly, 5) Give effective feedback, 6) Tap into talent, 7) Move to the mid...  Read More

A church from California Vibrant Faith works with created a 3-year plan based on the theme, "Called to Connect" that was focused on forming faith: Beyond the church walls Based on people's existing network of friends  Included sharing  faith stories, and Discussed people's next steps for growing in faith.The information below describes one of the year's annual goals for their faith formation team ...  Read More

Coaching for Leadership is a collection of short articles written by various coaches that address specific ways to coach leaders around some form of transformation in their personal  and professional settings. I've highlighted just five themes that surfaced from the book I felt were worthy of further discussion. The best coachees/clients are self-aware, understand their current reality, and have a...  Read More

Marshall Goldsmith says, “There is an enormous disconnect between understanding and doing…” (What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful, 2007). There are so many things I know I need to do and every day I fail to do them. It’s not that they are not important, actually some of them are essential, but I still fail to do them.  Why is that?We are all dif...  Read More

Coaching the Team at Work provides helpful insights about how coaching actually shows up when one works with teams, and what conditions need to be in place to make coaching teams a fruitful endeavor.  As in most books, I find that I come away with more questions than answers.  I've listed the questions below from this book that challenged my to thinking and approaches to team coaching. All coachin...  Read More

Although Direct Communication is no longer an ICF Core Competency, effective coaches are exceptional in applying the skill. The challenge with Direct Communication is that, sometimes we misconstrue Direct Communication with directing, advising, or fixing the other. Instead,Direct Communication has to do with responding to the Coachee in a way that is articulate and succinct. It challenges the Coac...  Read More

According to the ICF, evoking new awareness is about asking questions that “help the client explore beyond the client’s current thinking or feeling to new or expanding ways of thinking or feeling about themselves (the who).”  In Professional Coaching Competencies: The Complete Guide, Dr. Damian Goldvarg and his colleagues expand on the concept of creating new awareness. They state that in creating...  Read More

By Dr. Felix Villanueva, Director of Vibrant Faith's Coaching SchoolIn the book, Becoming an Exceptional Executive Coach, Michael Frisch and his partners compare coaching agreements with “preparing a room for painting. It may seem to delay the start of the needed work, but preparation always pay off later in both efficiency and quality of results.” Part of the preparation in co-creating the coachi...  Read More

A Coachee comes to you seeking grief coaching. The Coachee is Asian. She lives and works in an Asian country. She speaks fluent English and her culture and demeanor are very Western. She has experienced multiple loses in her life. She tells you that she lost her brother through suicide a few years back. She also lost her mother and grandmother. In recent months, she lost a serious love relationshi...  Read More

The International Coach Federation (www.coachfederation.org) defines coaching as "partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” Coaching frames conversations through powerful questions that help clients achieve their desired outcomes. When you refer to the International Coach Federation's definition of...  Read More

Change Your Questions, Change Your LIfe is a book that should be in every coach’s library. It’s chock full of insights and practical questions, quotes, approaches, and exercises to help individuals and the people we coach garner greater insights on their lives and ministries.Marilee Adams shows us the power of questions to direct our thinking and therefore our actions and results by designing the ...  Read More

In Chad Hall's book, The Coaching Mindset, the author highlights 7 mindsets a coach needs to pay attention to in order to develop their coaching presence. He reminds readers that coaches take a unique approach to helping their clients. Rather than tell people what to do, coaches help people tell themselves what to do. Rather than sharing expertise,  coaches draw forth the client's expertise.Chad's...  Read More

"A leader is bestWhen people barely know he exists,Not so good when people obey and acclaim himWorse when they despise him,But of a good leader, who talks littleWhen his work is done, his aim fulfilledThey will all say “We did it ourselves.”                                                                       — Lao Tse Group coaching is a facilitated group process that is led by a coach and forme...  Read More

"We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body.”  - Paulo Coelho.Coaches have the power to create a ripple effects of transformation within people’s lives and ministries. They reveal the greatness within clients where they experience more impact, more beauty, and more abundance as they design the kind of life they dream of.The Book of Coachi...  Read More

There are essential steps and systems that, if consistently followed, support effective coaching.These practices, approaches, and tools will set you up for success in the long run and help ensure that every client you coach has a high quality coaching experience. As you walk through the steps and systems below, celebrate the items you already do or have in place. Note which ones need attention and...  Read More

Your relationship with clients usually extends beyond the formal coaching relationship. How you mark the ending of your role as a coach is important. Coaching relationships end for a variety of reasons. In most cases, the client achieved their desired outcomes through the coaching relationship and the ending of the coaching relationship becomes a celebration of “mission accomplished.” Some relatio...  Read More

As coaches, we invite our clients to embrace an open mind, a spirit of humility, a willingness to experiment, and to maintain a growth mindset. These same traits are essential for the pursuit of coaching mastery. People with growth mindsets believe that their abilities as coaches can be improved through dedication and hard work (see Carol Dweck's book, Mindset).Every year, I create a Reinvention R...  Read More

According to the International Coach Federation, Direct Communication is described as the “ability to communicate effectively during coaching sessions, and to use language that has the greatest positive impact on the client.”  It includes “reframing and articulating in ways that help clients understand their situation from new perspectives."  It usually involves the sharing of messages, reflection...  Read More

One of the the last questions we often ask in a coaching conversation is, "Who else can support your next steps?"  As coaches help clients build accountability and support into steps for moving forward, having conversations with your clients about who might serve as mentors in their life can be a great help. Many great leaders have credited their success to having strong relationships with one or ...  Read More

Co-Active Coaching is one of my favorite coaching books due to how it concretely describes the nature of the coaching relationship and how the coach and the coachee/client work together for the sake of the coachee’s agenda. It describes how a coach consciously creates a collaborative, proactive environment that shows up in new actions, approaches, attitudes, assumptions, and learnings. The author ...  Read More

It's important that coaches continually refine their coaching approaches and practices in their pursuit of being a masterful coach.  Listed below are indicator suggesting ways that coaches can demonstrate their proficiency in each of the 8 ICF core competencies. Review this list regularly. Make note of this competencies you excel in and which ones need further attention. Take time after a coaching...  Read More

Masterful coaches help clients see life and ministry from different angles of vision. Listed below are two common approaches coaches can use to help individuals and groups think more holistically and creatively. The approaches may be used for individual reflection, pre-work for a meeting or coaching session, or during a coaching conversation. APPROACH 1 | Ask Questions Like a JournalistWHY are we ...  Read More

Good coaching is shaped by one's ability to ask good questions. Effective coaches draw out a client's wisdom and call forth new possibilities.  I track which questions and phrases that I use in coaching situations and note which ones seem to work particularly well. Five of my favorites include:1 |"TELL  ME YOUR OPTIONS"This statement always leads to new awareness and exploration of options that ha...  Read More

According to the International Coaching Federation, coaching presence is defined as the "ability to be fully conscious and present with the client, employing a style that is open, flexible and confident."  Few coaches do this consistently, where they:connect with the whole of the client.are guided by their natural curiosity.are free of the need to perform or provide value.come from a place of not ...  Read More

Professional coaches recognize the importance of creating safe, sacred space for coaching.  This involves preparation before, during , and after the coaching session.PREPARE FOR THE SESSIONSelect a quiet, well-lit, distraction-free environment where you can be fully present for the client. Allow adequate time to decompress from other activities before engaging in a coaching session.Take time to re...  Read More

What gets inspected gets improved. What’s tracked becomes transformed. Find ways to assess proposals and ministries through multiple angles of vision. Listed below are two ways I frequently use to reflect, rethink, and reinvent, and to make better decisions. Try both approaches in the near future!1 | ASK QUESTIONS LIKE A JOURNALISTWHY are we considering this? What is the purpose? How does it fulfi...  Read More

One of my favorite books on listening is called Listen Like You Mean It  by Ximena Vengoechea. It's an essential guide to improving your listening skills that is chock-full of practical tips and hands-on exercises to help you listen with empathy, humility, and understanding. I really like the way the author categorizes the types of questions and phrases we use in ways that lead to constructive ses...  Read More