Coaching Skills 101: How to Effectively Communicate, Motivate, and Inspire

You may associate coaching with a specific coaching service or professional role, such as a career, business, or life coach. However, coaching isn’t just reserved as a job title. 

Coaching is a useful skill in any leadership role, particularly if you are responsible for the growth and development of others. Building your coaching leadership skills in the workplace helps you more effectively motivate, inspire, and develop teams, which benefits and grows your company’s business. 

Explore some essential coaching skills that can bring many benefits to a workforce, and take a look at how to improve your own coaching skills. 

8 essential coaching skills 

Wherever you work and whatever type of coaching you consider, you’ll need a range of skills essential for all coaching strategies. These skills apply universally, regardless of why you are coaching your team.

1. Communication

Communicating well is fundamental when coaching. It’s a critical skill for building rapport and trust with the person you coach. In turn, it allows them to open up to you, share their goals, and talk to you about any concerns. Effective relationship-building and interactions allow you to communicate acceptance and empathy while remaining direct when setting goals. Ultimately, you aim to create a culture where employees feel valued. 

2. Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is an umbrella term that describes the ability to understand, evaluate, interpret, and control emotions. If you are highly emotionally intelligent, you also have the ability to recognize emotion and understand how it manifests in others. This is a fantastic quality when coaching because people don’t always say what they feel, and emotions lead to various behaviors that aren’t connected. Understanding how people think and feel and recognizing behaviors and triggers can allow you to see a challenge before it arises. 

3. Active listening

Interpersonal skills, such as active listening, can be as important as speaking when coaching others. Active listening happens when you pay close attention to what someone says, using physical gestures and cues to show that you’re engaged. This might involve making eye contact and responding with encouraging words or phrases. It could also mean keeping an open mind so the person speaking to you feels heard or ensuring no disruptions (like phones) during the conversation. As a leader, using active listening techniques can help you develop stronger bonds with your employees. 

4. Empathy

As a coach and a leader, it’s also important to treat your team as human beings rather than just staff members. This requires empathy. Empathy skills mean you can identify with your employees and understand how every aspect of their lives, including personal matters, may impact their work. This may help build trust and respect among your team. 

5. Positivity 

Good coaches are supportive and enthusiastic, which often comes from maintaining a positive personality. Point out people’s strengths, help them see what they can accomplish, excite them to achieve their goals, and congratulate them on their achievements. This can often lead to stronger performance among employees. 

6. Instruction and feedback

The ability to listen and guide is important. Still, coaching techniques also include the ability to give clear, sometimes firm, instructions and to provide feedback that is fair and constructive rather than critical. It’s best to be respectful and avoid personalizing a situation. You can make requests rather than give orders and always lead by example. Try building your conversations around praise and positive feedback.

7. Goal setting

Along with instruction comes the process of goal setting. With clear professional goals, employees are more likely to push themselves to the next level when necessary. When you assign tasks as a coach or leader, set clear, well-defined goals. In this way, you’ll help motivate your team and tell them exactly what they’re striving for when working on a project. 

One common tool leaders often use for setting goals is SMART goals. This stands for: 

• Specific: What is your specific goal? 

• Measurable: What is the metric that proves you’ve accomplished your goal? 

• Achievable: How will you achieve the goal? 

• Relevant: What is the purpose of working toward this goal? 

• Time-bound: How long will it take you to achieve your goal?

Communicating all of this information to your team is essential for ensuring everyone knows what to do and why they’re doing it. 

8. Growth mindset

A growth mindset is an important quality for a coach of any kind. It is the belief that the human brain is malleable and that you can achieve your goals through hard work, practice, and commitment. This skill plays a pivotal role in coaching because it’s vital for a coach to embrace the idea that no limitations exist on what they, or someone else, can achieve. The goal of coaching is to encourage and support people to reach their potential. 

How to improve coaching skills 

Coaching skills are useful to develop, no matter your role, but they are especially important for leadership. Being a good coach means boosting employee morale and ensuring your company meets its objectives. 

To improve your coaching skills, start with yourself. Define your strengths and look for ways to improve upon them. Ask colleagues for feedback on what you could do better, and use this information to set new goals. 

Some other ways to improve your coaching skills might include: 

• Working with a mentor: Look for people in your life with the traits you wish to possess and ask them to guide you. 

• Remaining unbiased: When working with a colleague, biases may naturally occur. To mitigate this, go into your conversations with a neutral mindset, ask questions, practice mindfulness, and get outside your comfort zone. 

• Asking open-ended questions: When you ask questions that a colleague can answer with just a “yes” or “no,” this may not encourage open dialogue. Instead, practice asking questions like “What steps do you think you should take next?” or “What kind of timeline do you think you need to achieve this goal?” This can foster communication and engagement between you and your team and may even help you form new ideas. 

Benefits of coaching skills in the workplace

Using your coaching skills in the workplace greatly benefits your organization because it supports engagement, employee retention, and productivity. Whether this is a formal arrangement as part of a coaching initiative outlined by your workplace or informally embedded into your working culture, effective coaches understand the differences between coaching and managing and use an appropriate balance. 

By applying your coaching skills in the workplace, you can become a more effective leader and work toward creating a more efficient and productive team. Other benefits might include: 

• Encouraging teams to become more focused on their goals 

• Creating stronger bonds between colleagues 

• Empowering employees to approach things like difficult conversations 

• Promoting a positive workplace culture 

Ultimately, these strengths can lead to a better bottom line for your organization. 

Next steps

Any professional can benefit from gaining coaching skills, but they can be especially beneficial if you want to work in a leadership role. Not only will coaching skills aid you in becoming a more effective leader, but they also help create a positive workplace culture that fosters clear communication, goal setting, and growth. All of this can contribute to higher performance and ensure your company stays competitive.

To build your coaching skills for use in the workplace and increase your value as a leader, you might consider starting with Coaching Skills for Managers Specialization on Coursera from The University of California Davis. You can also look into completing a Professional Certificate, such as the Goodwill Career Coach and Navigator Professional Certificate.