What Kind Of Coach Are You, Good or Bad?

We all coach each other on a daily basis whether we are aware of it or not. Some of us are bad coaches and some of us are good coaches . There is a world of difference between the two. The basic purpose of coaching is totrain a person or teams of people to increase their abilities, skills and knowledge in whatever area of life they are needing or wanting to improve. When we interact with each other we are often coaching by the very nature of those interactions. We coach our children, our friends, our spouses, and our fellow co-workers. Some of us coach athletic teams and individual athletes while others of us coach leaders, executives and individuals. The is to assist others to become champions , winners in the games they chose to play in life whether it be as a parent, in their job, their education, their athletic team, their relationships or their profession. It is vital therefore that we know the difference between abad coach and agood coach!

The Bad Coach – does not allow the  individuals on his team to self correct. He does not afford them that opportunity. People are quite capable of self correcting but when they are prevented from doing so they become dependent on others to tell them what to do and cannot act without orders or instructions. These are the people who are doomed to spending their lives working for others. This robs the world of leaders.

He does not afford them the opportunity to make mistakes without fear of retribution. People are quite capable of learning from their mistakes but when they are prevented from doing so they become fearful of taking action. The consequence is that these people tend not to reach out in life. Instead they operate in a small, safe circle of that which is already known to them and go about their lives in a robotic trance state repeating the same past successful actions over and over and over again. This robs the world of intelligence. (The light bulb was not invented through success it was invented through many, many failures.)

The Bad Coach creates more ‘bad coaches’ as people tend to do onto others as they have had done onto them. The Bad Coach creates upsets and upsets only serve to make life worse as upset people upset others.

What then are the attributes and abilities of the Good Coach? The answer to that question is contained in  the definition. A Good Coach makes more of his team and the individual players on that team. A Good Coach acknowledges wanted behaviors and,in fact, celebrates them. A Good Coach is not threatened when the person or persons he is training become more proficient,knowledgeable and capable than him or her self – the student is allowed and indeed encouraged to surpass the master. A Good Coach shares his knowledge,skills and abilities and imparts them to others. A Good Coach does not make less of those that do not possess the same level of knowledge, skills and abilities. A Good Coach allows students to self correct and views mistakes as a valuable learning tool. A Good Coach brings out the best in others.

The Good Coach creates more ‘good coaches’ as people tend to do onto others as they have had done onto them. The Good Coach creates set ups and assist others in keeping their setups in place.

I was looking today at the phrase “egging someone on” and into my mind’s eye came a series of visions as to what that phrase looked like to me. I saw the school yard at recess when two children had an upset with each other – it would have probably resolved but for the fact that there were other children “egging on” at least one of the parties involved in the upset. Rather than a resolution or a simple letting go of whatever had triggered the upset the “egging on”almost always resulted in a tussle if not an all out fight. Girls in the school washroom, talking about another and the whole gaggle of them are“egging each other on” with one negative, nasty story after another.

I also got a picture of a time when I had gone to the high school to collect my son. I was standing waiting for him near the gym and through the partially opened door I could hear the coach “egging on” his players. That is to say that he was attempting to inspire them into optimum action by telling them what screw ups they were as if that would give him the result he was looking for. I am not talking about things like yelling out, “________ get in the game” or some such, I’m talking about “_________, you blankedity, blank, blank idiot, or moron or some such noun.” This coach was fully engaged in derogatory,disrespectful, personal attacks. The methodology he was using was not at all unlike what I used to hear and witness on the school playground as a child. He was trying to motivate his team to play well by making less of or nothing of his team members. He was trying to don’t them into a do outcome. Try telling a young child don’t run – they don’t hear the word don’t, they hear run and it is accompanied by a mental image projected by you of running! If I tell you don’t think of an ice cream cone the first picture that is going to pop into your mind is….tah dah….an ICE CREAM CONE!

I was taken aback in that this man held a position of authority in these children’s lives as a coach, a teacher and as a mentor. This was a man that had I asked him what he did would consider himself to be a “professional”. However, if he worked in any number of other environments both his attitude and his conduct would be considered anything but professional.

This led me to look at my ideas, definitions, and understandings of what a coach is. I was quite taken aback by the parade of negative mental images that marched themselves through the theatre of my mind simply by doing a search of the word “coach” on my own hard drive. I found that I was programmed with quite the collection of negatives attached to the word and therefore my vision of “coach”.  Being subjected to bad coaching can put a person off from ever accepting coaching from anyone and it sets them up to fail.  All of us need coaches and we need GOOD COACHES!

So here I sit, and I’m touting myself as a Life Enhancement Coach and I have all these negative pictures of what a coach is. Worse still is that I am not consulting my ‘clients’ understanding of the word “coach” in order to determine whether or not there are a bunch of misunderstood definitions, negative pictures and past upsets on coaches sitting between myself and my ‘client’. “I’ll be your coach”, I offer…”the hell you will”, they think to themselves, “The last thing on earth I need in my life is another coach!” Much of people’s back-off and reluctance then in learning something new, getting trained,getting coaching is that they have been negatively processed by the “coaches”in the past. Therefore, if I am to be an effective coach I have to have a clear, holographic understanding of the precise meaning and definitions of the word “coach”. I have to understand and be able to play therole of a coach, in the true sense and I have to consult my client’s understanding of what “coach” and “coaching” means to them. If it is something other than the precise meaning and definitions then I have to give them the correct and precise data. So grab a good dictionary and look the word up. A coach is a person who trains people in a specific area of life, be it an athlete, an executive, a leader, a student, or an individual in order to increase the others' knowledge and awareness, skills and abilities, craftsmanship and mastery, so that they may excel and win on their chosen playing field.

A Good Coach is able to perceive exactly what the student is capable of and assists the student, at a gradient, to do it better. 

A Good Coach will find out what his students want and assist them to achieve those wants.

A Good Coach is certain of the student's intelligence, strength and potential.

A Good Coach excels at validating the student's strengths and acknowledges and allows his student to win as the student continues to get better and better.

A Good Coach recognizes that good coaching equals a good future

A Good Coach will insist that everyone else on the team becomes good at and excels at what they do.

A Good Coach operates in a high mood level.

A Good Coach produces great results - great parents, great friends, great partners, great salesman, great executives, great employees, great leaders and great teams!

Everyone, each and every single one of us is a coach, without exception. Every single moment of every single day whenever and wherever we are involved with each other be it on a casual level or an intimate one we are coaching each other. We are sharing our knowledge; we are teaching people how to treat us; we are sharing our abilities; and we are using our skills. The question is not Who is a Coach the question is What Do You Have To Be, What Do You Have To Do, What Do You Have To Have in order to be the BEST COACH YOU CAN BE?