LIFC 202 Research Paper

Myles Downey in his book "Effective Coaching" Effective Coaching: Lessons from the Coach's Coach, Oct 2003.

It is the depth and breadth of the research spanning over 3 decades that provides researchers in the coaching domain a body of knowledge to build upon, compare and contrast (De Haan, XXX). Throughout the literature, various terms are used to describe the relationship including, the therapeutic alliance, ego alliance, working alliance and helping alliance and I will refer to the generic term of alliance (Horvath & Luborsky, 1993) as meaning, “the client and counsellor’s subjective experience of working together towards psychotherapeutic goals in the counselling context, including the experience of an interpersonal bond that develops while engaged in this endeavour,” (Duff and Bedi, 2010, p.91). The alliance is therefore viewed as partnership with both parties actively contributing to the relationship with an emphasis on being

The relationship between an athlete and a coach is an unique and (humble??) one. It’s all about learning, growing, and overcoming failures to its successes. About looking forward to the future together in the game and beyond the life of sports. The interaction between them should be upheld and agreed upon, to be held together. They are the most influential character of the competitive environment. I believe in the value of a coach.

“At practice, Coach was always shouting the word Dig!” (Ehrmann 2011, pg. 53)What coach doesn’t ask for their players to work harder, dig deeper, or strive? We all do. “But to Coach it always meant: Dignity, Integrity, and Grace.” (Ehrmann 2011, pg. 53). Joe Ehrmann’s book InSideOut Coaching is an amazing look into why coaches coach. My mind was blown. My book looks like a firework display of highlights, underlines, and notes. There are so many ideas in this short book my head swam. The book really made me question the what, why, and how I am coaching. His ideas and opinions are a game changer for me. I can relate to Parade Magazine’s assessment; Joe Ehrmann is “The most important coach in America.” upon completing the book. For me the D.I.G.

The coach outlines set boundaries the client need to follow for this professional relationship to work. The coach will ask the client about their business relationship or “where there ever a time you broke an integrity rule at work? The client response will give an ideal of what type of boundaries need to be set and enforced. The skills needed to for a productive session is moral and integrity. Those skills is not something learned in textbooks, but in life teaching.

Executive Coaching is an exciting field of opportunity; an opportunity for the executive to grow out of their old self and into something (situation) or someone new. The growth may be tremendous or it can be more subtle getting the executive or manager to reach a place of improved performance and through the process they come from the strain of stress to the gain of satisfaction of a job well done. Coaching shifts the executives into a new process of being, in the executive’s personal life and professional life.

Executive coaching entails helping executives who has a negative impact on relationships with co-workers, subordinates, and clients. Feldman (2009) executive coaching focus on not the “executive dreams, goals, interest, passions, and unique characteristics, but what the Board and Advisory Committees perceive is best from their perspective” (p. 152).

What is coaching – “The coach works with the clients to achieve a speedy, increased and sustainable effectiveness in their lives and careers through focused learning. The coach’s sole aim is to work with the client to achieve all of the client’s potential-as defined by the client” The Coaching Manual Starr, J 2008.

The fourth section of the book which is profiling and coaching is described in 7 chapters. The section illustrates the variation between coaching specialties, and providing concrete successful coaches examples. These examples include relationship and creativity coaches, wellness and life coach, career and business coach, as well as leadership and executive coach among others. The book therefore touches on all couching specialties and thus, the book can be useful to anyone who wishes to develop a career in coaching. In addition, the book provide a holistic view of the coaching problem and thus, offering all possible solutions to the coaching problems (Allen & Grodzki, 2005).

The coach tirelessly pursues personal education, formally and informally, both in the performance related sciences and in liberal arts. He sees the journey to coaching excellence as a never ending story; seen not only in terms of a chosen sport and coaching theory and practice, but in understanding how to successfully live a balanced and full life, while facing tougher and tougher challenges in the chosen field of endeavour.

Taking the time to reflect on why it is someone coaches is beneficial for personal growth, and for creating an awareness of one’s changes in motivation, which affects behavior. Therefore, changes in motivation can be reflected in someone’s behavior and his or her well-being. Those who feel that they are coaching because they want to, will be successful, and feel that coaching allows them to acquire relationships with their players, and display more motivation for coaching. Being aware of why someone coaches their sport is an important part of reflective practice. One person’s

• Ensuring they deal professionally with any identified relationship difficulties or conflicts of interest. Considering carefully the impact on themselves, the coachee, the organisation where appropriate seeking guidance

Coaching requires a sophisticated toolkit of skills, including content knowledge, leadership skills, relationship building and communication (Knight, 2008; Gallucci et al., 2010). Though the role

We start by defining executive coaching. Kilburg (1996) defines the executive coachee as a person who has management responsibility in an organization. He defines the coach as a consultant who uses behavioral techniques to help the executive coachee achieve a mutually defined set of goals. He defines the coaching relationship as a supportive relationship between the executive coachee and the coach. Finally, he defines the coaching goals as objectives to improve the executive coachee’s performance, executive coachee’s personal satisfaction, and effectiveness of the executive coachee’s organization within a formally defined coaching agreement. Executive leadership coaching has a similar definition defined by the Center for Creative Leadership as a relationship “in which the executive coachee and coach collaborate to assess and understand the executive coachee and his or her leadership developmental tasks, to challenge current constraints while exploring new possibilities, and to ensure accountability and support for reaching goals and sustaining development” (Ting & Hart, 2004). Coaching helps executive coachees and organizations to be more effective by changing the executive coachee’s behavior, emotions, attitudes, and thoughts (Kilburg, 1996).

My experiences with my professional coaching sessions were very challenging to say the least. When I decided to begin graduate school, I never imagined I would be coaching my peers and they would be coaching me during my first quarter. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the experience and I learned a lot while participating. In my circle of friends, I am the one always handing out advice whether it is solicited or not. Because of this, I assumed these sessions would come natural to me. However, I learned by me forcing my opinion and advise on others I was trying to control them. Whitmore (2009), states