Three ways to be a selfish coach … and be even better than you are now!

If you spend some of your time coaching, I would guess that the idea of being self-centred, is about as far away from how you want to be, as it is possible to be. And that’s a good thing. Mostly.

In fact the reason you are such a great coach is probably due in large part down to your ability to suspend you ego and put your client at the forefront of your attention whilst you are working with them. And that’s a great skill. Mostly.

You are probably like to spend some of your time after each coaching session reviewing how you did, how the session went and as a result you can decide how to do things differently next time. That’s ideal professional development. Mostly.

You see, the problem arises when your willingness to focus on others, results in you not spending sufficient time getting fresh input on your coaching performance. If you want to continue to do great work, then you need to remain at the top of your game. It is easy when you have your focus externally, to lose sight of issues closer to home.

Go to front of the coaching queue

Make 2012 the year when you put your own coaching development at the front of the queue. So, here are some tips in order to ensure that you can continue your professional development to enhance the experience of your clients:

1. Take the time to self-assess (you’ll be pretty good at that I’m guessing) to identify where your areas of strength and development needs might be. Decide where to focus your attention this year. What will make the biggest difference to your coaching and the experience of your coachees? Research on-line and off-line to see where the best places, or courses, can be found to help develop these areas.

2. Find or develop your own brains’ trust: a group of coaches who are keen to develop themselves. Agree to practise some coaching on each other and, in a fully supportive way, provide focused feeback to each other on your performance. With great technology such as Google+ Hangouts or Skype you don’t even need to be local to each other.

3. Commit to coaching supervision in 2012. Find a great coaching supervisor and invest in yourself. Best practice suggests this is definitely an important professional step. It may use some valuable resources (time and money !) but this is for your longer-term benefit , and critically, that of your coachees.

My advice

Get a bit selfish to get lot better.

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HELP! It would be great to have a resource that coaches can refer to here, about professional development opportunities that have been recommended by those that coach. Please share your great coach development experiences in the comment space.

Photo thanks: wonderferret

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For coach development programmes for individuals and organisations please contact me here or glenn(at)theexecutivecoachingblog.com.