How do you develop the heart of a coach?
One of my favorite books on coaching is Leadership Coaching by Tony Stoltzfus and we list several of his books on our resource page. I believe that developing the heart of a coach is THE core competency of a Christian Life Coach, and this is the foundation upon which we build all other coaching competencies.
Tony writes “Upgrading your listening skills won’t make you into a coach. Neither will learning how to ask incisive questions,or how to hold someone accountable, or any of the other coaching skills. To truly tap into the power of coaching, you have to go beyond skills alone to grasp what makes those techniques important and why you are employing them. Great coaching starts with heart. . .”
How do you cultivate a coach’s heart for people? The place in our own experience that most exemplifies the heart of a coach is our relationship with God. Powerful coaching comes from studying, internalizing, and imitating the Father’s heart toward us.
“Jesus sees us with an unconditional love as well as an unconditional belief in our destiny. The freedom we gain from that unconditional relationship empowers us to change from the inside out, because we want to, instead of trying to adjust how we look on the outside so we’ll be accepted. The relationship comes first, then the change.
“The gift of relationship is the linchpin of God’s strategy for transforming people. Therefore, if we’re working at change, it would make a lot of sense for us to imitate God’s approach. Coaching does exactly that. The key to the heart of coaching is learning to see people as God sees them. As coaches, we consciously choose to interact with our clients in terms of their destiny, not their problems. We get to know them at a deep level; their dreams.
The bedrock of great coaching comes from what is in your heart for the person you are coaching.
“Our assignment as coaches is to look at people from God’s point of view, in terms of their destined place in the Bride of Christ. We want to instinctively tune into their God-given capacity, their untapped potential, the fleeting glimpses we see in them of the image of God -and consistently relate to them in those terms. By seeing them this way, we change how they see themselves. That opens the door to incredible transformation.”
How do you develop the heart of a coach?
Learn more about our 16 week, intensive and comprehensive program to become a Christian Life Coach.
