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Ten tips for excellence in coaching and mentoring

There are some vital skills and behaviours that contribute to your success as a coach.

• Listen attentively. Be sure you hear and fully understand what your coachee is telling you. Listen for what is not being said and above all do not interrupt.
  
• Be present and focused. Ensure that you bring your whole attention and focus to any coaching meeting.
  
• Seek to understand and not to judge. Your role is to maintain an open mind and encourage your coachee to share their feelings, concerns and ideas with you. A coachee will not share if all you do is criticise and judge.
  
• Ask open, positive questions. This will encourage your coachee to explore their issues from every perspective.
  
• Be positive. Look for solutions with the coachee rather than trying to solve the problem for them.
  
• Show interest in and empathy for your coachee. Increasingly the critical success factor is to develop good-quality relationships with your coachees.
  
• Help your coachee create specific goals. They can then have specific outcomes to achieve.
  
• Look for the coachee’s strengths and successes. This will help put them in a positive, energetic frame of mind to address whatever issues and concerns they are facing.
  
• Keep learning and developing as a coach. That way you keep up to date with new developments and take account of latest thinking.
  
• Demonstrate good ethical practice. Maintaining confidentiality at all times.