Coaching is a process aimed at bringing out a person’s best potential and to stimulate them to perform better in sports, school, or job. Great coaching involves creating an “intimate” relationship with the person you’re coaching. You have to learn their fears and aspirations and strengths and weaknesses. You then explore ways for creating powerful changes in their lives, career, or work. Whether you’re a basketball coach, a youth coach, a career coach, or other type of coach, the following tips will help increase your effectiveness as coach.

1. Show value coaching. Be the professional that you are. Arrive on time and make your team feel that they have your entire attention during your coaching session. When providing a one-on-one talk, don’t make the person feel that you’re rushing it through. It can make the person feel unimportant.
2. Value every team player. The purpose of coaching is to bring out the best in a person. Show equal priority to every team member, not just the brightest performer.
3. Listen to their goals and aspirations. Find out what they hope to achieve first, then steer them towards that direction.
4. Provide constructive criticism. This will help a person see their weaknesses and what they can do to improve them. Avoid negatives such as “You can’t” or “This is not.” This limits a person’s options. Use encouraging statements instead, such as “How about this”.
5. Challenge them. Give them goals, give them expectations. You have to encourage them to strive beyond what they can easily achieve. You need to stretch them a bit. However, don’t provide goals without discussing the steps for achieving those goals.
6. Listen actively. Listen to their opinions, ideas, suggestions, and viewpoints. It will make a person feel valued, and when a person feels good, they are likely to perform better.
7. Involve the team member in creating an action plan. You are a coach, not a psychotherapist or a counselor. By co-creating an action plan with your coachee, you encourage them to think for themselves, too, on how to improve their performance. When the call to action comes from within, a person is more likely to act on it.
8. Don’t forget the big picture. While you need to enhance every individual player’s capabilities, you have to remember that the use of these capabilities should be in line with organizational goals. You should learn how to balance needs of individual members with needs of the entire team.

Sources:

• www.coachingtip.com/
• www.sportscoachingbrain.com/101-coaching-tips