What should coaching sessions be like?

The development of a coaching session is a scenario that will depend a lot on the personal characteristics and methodological particularities of each coach. Every coach has his or her own work method, the one that has given the most positive results or the one that adjusts more easily to the coach's abilities. However, there are a series of basic parameters that must be taken into account when carrying out a successful coaching session.

During the development of this guide we will be addressing some basic elements that you should take into account to conduct your coaching sessions effectively, ensuring positive results in dealing with clients.

First encounters are about recognition

Many coaches make mistakes during the first meetings with their clients; these mistakes usually revolve around not knowing how to distinguish between a recognition session and a session to address the specific problem. When we meet a client for the first time, we must take care of the communication we establish and try to make it as close as possible. It is important to generate an atmosphere of trust, where honesty prevails and the client finds the necessary security to be able to expose his problems with total frankness.

A recognition session is the best way for the client and the coach to establish a relationship of complicity, so that the coach can identify the problems clearly and form a profile of the client that is as accurate as possible. Similarly, the recognition session provides the necessary space for the client to open up spontaneously, without having to revictimize himself or be biased by the authority imposed by the coach.

Listening with interest

A coaching session is not a monologue where the coach seeks to show off his skills or experiences. Any coach who manages his sessions wisely understands that an important phase of these sessions is to know how to listen to his clients and give them enough space so that they can clearly expose their ideas. By listening, the coach nourishes and feeds back his methods and actions, with which he will confront the specific problem.

The work for the benefit of the client requires the client's own involvement in the tasks to be developed, which is why the relationship established between the coach and the client is essential to achieve effective results.

Elaborate strategies that adapt to the client's profile

Not all strategies are valid for all people. That is why the recognition sessions have so much weight for the development of future sessions, as it allows us to form a client profile that is as accurate as possible. The conformation of the client's profile is useful when proposing effective strategies, this is because the recommendations and actions to be carried out must be adapted to the particular characteristics of the client, only in this way we guarantee that these can be carried out without force majeure factors that prevent their realization.

It is not coherent to propose to a client to release the stress accumulated by the problem he is facing by taking a break from his work, taking a vacation, if we have previously identified that our client cannot do without his work at this time. Perhaps an alternative of release more adjusted to the characteristics that our client has would be to perform physical activity in the afternoons, at the end of his working day.

With an example as simple as this one, we can appreciate how significant it is to adjust our strategies to the client's particular profile.