Personal Insight to Professional Development of a Coach

Personal insight to Professional Development of a Coach

This report is a professional  development plan that shows an evaluation of current skills and knowledge that includes my strengths and weaknesses. Development is a lifelong of nurturing, shaping and improving an individual's skills, knowledge and interests to ensure my maximum effectiveness and adaptability, and to minimize the obsolescence of my skills and my chances of redundancy. It does not necessarily imply upward movement; rather, it is about enabling individuals to improve and use my full potential at each career stage. The personal development plan for me is a chance to know my self better, I can realize what I want to achieve or where I want to go in the plan, in the short- or long-term, and also identifying the need for skills, knowledge or competence. It also helps me to define the appropriate development to meet those perceived needs. In this report, I am going to focusing on what my strengths are and where my weaknesses are, also how to use my strengths in the field I will work  into in the future, and how to develop my weaknesses to be my strengths as well.  I also am concerned about the feelings of others, relationship and maintaining wide ranging interests. I am good at listening to others and assimilating information is my strength as a reflector, however, I usually consider lots of things before making a decision cause me slow to make up my mind. When I face a problem I will think many aspect of the events and consider what will be influenced by my action, after I think all of situations then I can make up my mind. For instance, as I remember in my first day of coaching in a game and the indecisions that I made wanting to make the correct choice. I couldn’t make a decision which is better.  In this period, I was  not good enough at play selection  and the skills of coordinating the offense, that  would be a very big problem for me to do at the college level at Concordia now. I needed more instructions to prepare myself  during the years I studied at  Alabama State University for the future job, especially, Sports  Management.

       Developing Others “The goal is to begin building leaders to take your place someday-to build leaders who will be equipped not only to lead your organization or some aspect of it, but also, when they leave your organization one day, to stand on their own and lead and build other people and organizations.” It’s somewhat ironic that a profession football coach has so much insight on what it takes to truly be a dynamic coach of people but Tony Dungy could not have been more on target with his thoughts. Coaching is ultimately about developing people. Appreciative coaches chose to invent in their constituents because they care and not for short-term selfish gains. Coaching is the classic selfless act because at its core it is about tapping into the hopes and dreams of the client. It is the client dream’s that create the context for the improvement.  Appreciative coaches differ in one other perspective. They do not fall into the old paradigm where coaches saw individuals as problems to be fixed. Appreciative coaches partner with clients in a positive, generative approach in which the client is the agent of his or her own change. One final aspect of appreciative coaching involves relationships. When leaders show genuine care by investing in the development of their constituents they allow for the creation of the relationships necessary to accomplish extraordinary things. At its core leadership comes down to influence, and influence is a matter of relationship management. “Relationships are ultimately what matter-our relationships with God and with other people.” Further, it is not simply a matter of befriending others it is a matter of acting as a positive influence on the lives of the individuals you are able to come into contact, it is about sustainable results.
        Strength Based Coaching “Joy or happiness creates the urge to be playful. Play involves exploration and invention. Although play can sometimes appear to be aimless, it also promotes the acquisition of skills. In my mind these themes which are central to the positive principle and part of the foundation of appreciative coaching are the central elements a strength-based approach. I believe I have a good understanding of its impact. During my first coaching conversation with Barbara Miller I distinctly recall having overwhelming feelings of anxiety. I assumed that our coaching session would be similar with those I had encountered previously. I thought I would be belittled for revealing an area of opportunity in my leadership, as had been the case on numerous occasions in the past. What I did experience during our conversation was a transformative moment in my life and the way I have attempted to coach. Barbara’s application of a strength-based coaching approach allowed me to feel as if I could take on and conquer any issue. This was the first time I had actually felt good after a structured coaching event. “Positive thinking and positive emotions build on themselves.” In feeling that I could conquer my leadership issues I have been able to mitigate the negative effects and I am working towards continuous improvement. This is the power of a strength-based model. Clients not only feel as if they are able to take-on a challenge they are excited about the very possibility. They also feel a sense of passion and direction from the positive images evoked in them by the strength-based approach.
     Coaching Skills The second pillar to Appreciative Coaching involves the ability to ask thought provoking questions. When partnering with clients to allow them to be the agents of their own change it is profoundly important that the coach has the ability to ask the “right” questions and really listen to the input of their client. Although asking the “right” question is a general theme in the entire Appreciative Coaching process it is especially relevant in the Discovery stage. In this stage of Appreciative Coaching inquiry is the fundamental tool. Questioning allows for coaches to discover the frame of mind of their clients and assist in unlocking the answers their clients already have for their personal improvement. The second part of the communication cycle involves the need of the coach to listen intently to the response of their client. This is an area of my coaching that I have been working to improve. I have a tendency to polarize during dialogues, which often prevents me from actively hearing the responses of my clients. In this way I am not the ideal coach. I can be prideful and a bit self absorbed which contributes to my issues communicating. I often find myself in a position where I think I have the answers to any problem. On occasions I also find myself jumping in to soon rather than allowing the genius of my client to shine. I am making progress with respect to this issue. I have made a point to listen to my clients because I value them and their opinions. I also have a better understanding that they have the most effective solutions to their problems. I have an understanding that my role is to simply partner with the client as an agent of his or her own change.
Development Plan throughout this course I feel I will repeatedly be challenged to improve the ways by which I coach. In repeatedly forcing myself to consider alternatives to my coaching style I have come to view my coaching from a different perspective. As such there are a few developmental opportunities that I have identified. The first action item in my develop plan involves my need to better communicate with my players. By nature great coaches are great listeners. They have the innate ability to hear through the noise and get to the core of what their clients are trying to express. In order to build trust and show concern for clients coaches must display active listening skills. The final aspect of my coaching development plan has to due with the expansion of my mental model. I often find that my questioning is severely limited due to my limited exposure to unique mental perspectives. In an effort to mitigate some of these limitations I will begin exposing myself to different cultural experiences. The first step in this process will begin by learning a secondary language, namely Spanish.  Language is a key component of a culture thereby exposing myself and experiencing something new will expand by capability at understanding different perspectives. I will also begin some kind of immersion process in order to gain a much more involved understanding of varying perspectives.