ON BEING A DIRECTIVE COACH

“What do you do in coaching as a Coach— should you be directive or non-directive?” This was the question that a Meta-Coach in Sydney asked to me recently after some of the benchmarking sessions. Part of the reason for the question was the low marks he made in the coaching session. He thought he was “holding the space,” “being respectful,” “listening intently,” etc. but the person who benchmarked him wrote on the “Next Step” section to step up and be more active in the session. So he asked me what I thought.

Now in the Coaching Mastery manual you will find a whole page on this question (Skill #1: Supporting, page with heading “Directness”, p. 47 in 2013 Edition). There I have two sections, one on indirectness and the other on “Coaching directness.”