Coaching Behaviours

Great coaching is all about putting people first, combining intrapersonal, interpersonal skills and coaching knowledge to create an environment in which everyone can thrive.

This could be simplified as personal, people and practice.

Intrapersonal is how a well a coach knows themselves; allowing them to identify their values and beliefs, improve their coaching craft and develop along their coaching journey. The key competencies here are self-awareness, and the ability to reflect and act from these to develop yourself and your practice.

Interpersonal knowledge provides the coach with an awareness of how to coach people, relate to others and work effectively within the coaching environment. The key qualities to excel in here are emotional intelligence and transformational leadership.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognise, assess and manage your own emotions as well as those of your participants and those people in your coaching environment. The ability to observe an individual’s feelings, emotions and motivations can be a hard skill to develop and master.  

Transformational leadership is the ability to have clear values and to role model positive behaviours of these values to inspire a sense of purpose with participants, which in turn instils a level of motivation within themselves. Through a safe environment and supportive approach, this encourages individuals to stretch themselves, embrace challenge and risk failure. To achieve this, demonstrate a genuine interest in individuals through a caring and empathic approach.

Professional knowledge ensures the underpinning knowledge for a high-quality coaching experience. The ability to design quality practices and programmes to guide participants through their development and competition environments requires competency in the sport or physical activity and in designing effective learning.

The coaching behaviours are an intertwined connection of these qualities which play out as the lived actions of the coach.