Coaching is about developing skills and a relationship with each student you are coaching, according to the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). They share four core skills for coaching people, using the acronym LACE, that include…
- Listen to Understand. Successful coaches use active listening, reflecting back concepts to build understanding and then summarizing what you’ve heard. However, you also go a step beyond, listening to understand by paying attention to three layers within the conversation…
- Facts. What facts can you gather?
- Values. What values are behind the matter at hand?
- Emotions. What is the student feeling, based on their words, body language, beliefs, tone of voice and more?
- Ask Powerful Questions. Coaches provoke new insights when working with students, rather than just providing them. This happens through asking courageous questions that move conversations forward and making non-directive inquiries to draw out additional information and stretch the student’s thinking. Asking powerful questions can help discover insights and things unspoken that otherwise might not hit the light of day.
- Challenge and Support. When coaches challenge students, it can uncover unexamined assumptions, create productive dialogue and take ideas out for a test drive. You’re helping them consider something different than their typical approach or shift their perspective through openness, inquiry and exploration. Yet, offering the right amount of support in the mix is key! Students need to feel safe, like you understand their feelings and values, in order to flourish.
- Establish Next Steps and Accountability. Once initial conversations occur in a coaching relationship, the new insights and behaviors need to be applied to clear, specific, meaningful actions. Figure next steps to connect conversations to actions and increase the chance of successful follow-through that leads to meaningful change.
Find more how-to and training info like this, as well as helpful campus profiles, within our NEW Student Success Coaching Guide!
