Building coaching capability

Building coaching capability

Coaching is about "unlocking a person's potential to maximise their own performance". (Whitmore, 1996). It has long been recognised in the private sector as an important leadership capability, and increasingly now in schools, higher education and the voluntary sector.

In education, highly respected researcher John Hattie has highlighted the importance of coaching for "facilitating self-directed learning, personal growth, and improved performance".

Coaching offers a powerful way to develop others, whether they are new staff members, long-serving employees, or somewhere in-between. Significantly, it is an approach that builds the initiative, agency and commitment of the employee to their own learning and professional development.

Foundational coaching mindsets

To be a great coach, you need to be fully present for the other person. You need to sharpen your listening skills, learn to listen for feelings and values, and know how to use purposeful questions to help the other person move forward.

Everyone is different, so you will need to flex your approach with each person. Our Four Faces model can help you identify which coaching style is needed - for example when to give feedback or challenge, and when to simply offer support and encouragement.

Advanced coaching mindsets

Once you have mastered the fundamentals of coaching, you may be inspired to take your coaching to a new level. Our advanced coaching modules enable you to widen your coaching toolkit to handle different coaching situations. You can learn how to deepen trust and empathy, how to handle conflict and how to support others to build their personal resilience. This curriculum draws from our book The Four Greatest Coaching Conversations.

Level One: Foundational Coaching Mindsets

To be a great coach, you need to be fully present for the other person. You need to sharpen your listening skills, learn to listen for feelings and values, and know how to use targeted questions to help the other person move forward.

Everyone is different, so you will need to flex your approach with each person. Our Four Faces model can help you identify which coaching face is needed, when to give feedback and when to simply offer support.

Level Two: Advanced Coaching Mindsets

Once you have mastered the fundamentals of coaching, you may be inspired to take your coaching to a new level. Our advanced coaching mindsets enable you to widen your coaching toolkit to handle different coaching situations. You can learn how to deepen trust and empathy, how to handle conflict and how to support others to build their personal resilience. This curriculum draws from our book The Four Greatest Coaching Conversations.

Learn from an expert coach 

There is no better way to improve your coaching than by experiencing a professional coach in action. All our coaching capability programmes are delivered by highly skilled, professional coaches who will reveal the tricks of their trade and model important skills and helpful tools.

We don’t believe that one coaching framework is all you need for every coaching situation. Instead, our programmes deliberately introduce you to a range of coaching strategies that you can apply – not just within more formal development conversations, but within your everyday conversations with colleagues and team members.


Hear a coach explain how you can broaden your own coaching skills

Creating a Coaching Culture 

Interested in finding out more?

* required field

Schools use coaching in different ways. Some ring-fence time for formal teacher coaching, lesson observation and feedback. Others are looking to enhance the quality of everyday professional conversations. Some schools are asking all teachers to adopt a coaching approach with their students, while others are seeking formal coaching accreditation for key people.

We're here to help. Contact us for support and advice in choosing the best programme to meet your needs.

Powerful Conversations

Powerful Conversations

Learn More

Coach

Coach

Learn More