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10 Qualities of An Outstanding Coach

James A. DeSena, CSP

"An outstanding coach prepares people for success,
rather than catching them at failure." Jim DeSena

Tenth Quality - An outstanding coach is a role model.

"Do what I say, not what I do."

In spite of everything we might say, people watch our behaviors and follow our lead. One of the easiest ways to notice this is with children. They are especially observant of any differences between what we say and what we do. They harp on precedence. "You let me do that before" is their way of gaining leverage with us. A coach has to model the kind of qualities he or she is expecting in others. Some of those qualities might be honesty, integrity, consistency, fairness, a caring tone of voice and hard work. If those were the qualities you wanted from others, do you demonstrate those qualities in your interactions with them? Are your employees ever surprised by an announcement they heard first from someone other than you? Or are they kept in the loop and continually updated to the best of your ability?

When James Kinnear was CEO of Texaco, he led his organization through a trying time. Everyone could have been demoralized. He said, "If I walked around with a long face on, imagine how everyone else would have felt." Even though it was a difficult time, he knew he needed to maintain an optimistic outlook and demeanor. He didn't ignore the reality of the situation. He confronted it. He told people, "If you keep your eye on the business, I promise I will deliver us from this embarrassing affair and we will emerge again as a respected company." Employees kept their eye on the business and he kept his end of the bargain.
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Ninth Quality - an outstanding coach is an encourager.

Sometimes, all it takes for someone to turn around his or her performance is a word of encouragement. When things aren't going well, our perspective can get thrown way off. We can go to an extreme in thinking about how badly we might have performed. Sometimes, we just need someone to refocus our thinking on the future and how good it can be rather than dwelling on the past and how bad it was.

Sometimes a word of encouragement is all we need to get us thinking about new possibilities. It could be words as simple as "I expect big things of you."

When Lou Gestner took over as CEO of IBM, the outlook for the computer maker wasn't rosy. Gestner acknowledged the situation, but encouraged employees to keep an eye toward the future. He said that they might feel as if they were walking into the wind, but that at some point the situation would change and they would feel, "The wind at your back," meaning that they will have gotten through the worst.

It's easy for someone in a position of authority to criticize, to question why a person did something or to say "I told you so" (even if it is not said in not those exact words). Most of us know when we haven't performed at our best. An outstanding coach encourages the player to think about the next time. The outstanding coach uses words that tell the person he could do better: "You're capable of much more. What do you think we need to work on?" for example. An outstanding coach does just the opposite of what most people would be inclined to do when someone he or she is coaching doesn't do as well as expected. Rather than jumping on the bandwagon to criticize and blame, the outstanding coach helps the individual learn and grow from what happened.

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