Qualities of a Great Coach

Coaching is a great career that involves influencing the lives of people, making them look forward to achieving their dreams. When individuals assume the coaching responsibility, they have to establish themselves as leaders. Inspiring greatness to the followers is one way of influencing the performance of the team members. Coaching career does not only concentrate on the development of skills, it also entails shaping the characters of the followers and showing positive direction by instilling discipline and encouraging teamwork. In cases where the satiations seem impossible, great coaches will always inspire their team members to go beyond their expectations and accomplish dreams of tremendous magnitude. Coaches are always the steel behind the conversion of a potential of a common man into success, they are the drivers that lead people to success. Great coaches are the epitome of success in every team; they often have the traits of grit and integrity which make them unique in the society. Coaching career requires mental strength that enables coaches to withstand criticism and stress that often arise in the daily management of a team. In many cases, coaches have the ability to influence many lives and they need to possess different qualities that often make them great.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Great coaches often have an organized approach and commitment towards achieving specific tasks. My high school coach had the above characteristic; he was more organized and systematic in tackling various challenges in our football team. In many cases, he would spend much of the time in identifying talents and what every person in the team is capable of doing perfectly (Athanasopoulou 33). Through organized ways of managing the team, out coach managed to improve the team performance, he was also able to identify different talented people for specific roles in the team. The most important trait of a coach is commitment and organization towards building an effective team. In the work environment and in many different organizations, great coaches understand that the success of their company or departments depends on their employees or workers (Dungy 20). When the team members are organized effectively, they are capable of producing better results. To boost the performance, great coaches often establish coaching programs at specified times to enhance cohesiveness in their teams and to empower the team members by inspiring them towards achieving their individual dreams as well as the dreams of the team. The more the team members adhere to the coaching or training schedules, the stronger the team becomes and the more they stick to it, the higher their chances of achieving success. An organized and committed coach is a symbol of the team's success.

Successful coaches are process oriented and they are always consistent in performing their mandates towards improving the teams. To train employees in an organization to adhere to the operational and ethical standards, consistency is essential on the side of management. Great coaches understand that there are slow learners that require more time to learn a specific procedure. During my career as an accountant, the consistency put forward by my coach enabled me to grasp the different technical aspect of accounting (Hernez-Broome et al. 84). In most cases, the actual coaching procedures with the team members are not arbitrary, it is usually consistent. Through consistency, the employees or the team members are not always left confused by the methodology applied in the coaching process. A greater coach monitors the performance of the team members based on what they are doing and compares them with the standards established by an organization. Successful coaches often carry out the analysis on the performance of each individual, provide feedbacks and modify the training approaches according to the progressive abilities of the team members. They also ensure the modification of behaviors to ensure that all members of a group conform to the set standards and ethical requirements. When delivering feedbacks, great couches ought to be objective; they should ignore the subjective and arbitrary nature of the feedback by defining the operational procedures for specific parts of responsibilities assigned to each group member. When feedbacks are given in line with the set standards, they are usually based on the predetermined elements and not according to the will of the coach at that particular time.

Great coaches are flexible in their thinking; they should be able to adjust according to the behaviors and personality of the team members. Getting in touch with the team members is an effective approach to ensuring the success of the team. Understanding the character of each individual often enable coaches to establish coaching processes that are suitable for everyone. Amiable team members should be handled with a lot of sensitivities. Understanding the characters of the team members is not only applicable in the coaching process but also in other aspects of learning that involves different personalities. In our high school football team, our coach managed to understand everyone in the team, a scenario that enabled him to establish different training processes and procedures. The above situation led to the establishment of an integrated team and it also created a sense of collective responsibility. Great coaches also need to be tolerant and patient in conducting training programs. There are people who often adjust slowly to a given environment; such kinds of characters require patience and tolerance on the side of the coach. On the other hand, many people usually resist change even though the change may be for their good. Modifying or changing the behaviors of an individual is a complex process that requires a lot of effort and time (Henriksen et al. 12). A great coach should be aware that there are people who adjust quickly to different training processes while others have a slow adjustment. Team members will always make repeated mistakes. A great coach should be tolerant to mistakes and they should be ready to correct an individual with patience and based on their level of understanding (Athanasopoulou 33). Patience is, therefore, a virtue that every coach should have in order to lead a successful team.

In conclusion, the main goal of a great coach is to empower, guide and inspire the team to achieve the full potential. Great coaching also involves exceptional leadership capable of unifying the team players through enhancing their commitment to a single purpose. Great coaches should also have exhaustive knowledge of the team they are supporting and additionally, they need to have fundamental skills that can enable them to advance their strategies and tactics in various coaching lines. There are numerous coaches that have led their teams to success through determinations. Not all coaches train their teams to become successful, there are coaches who only influence the characters of the team members and develop them to become good team players. The success of a team is all about the development of healthy people who can apply their skills in enhancing a sense collective responsibility.

Works Cited

Athanasopoulou, Andromachi. Developing Leaders by Executive Coaching: Practice and Evidence. Oxford University Press, USA, 2014. Internet resource.

Dungy, Tony. The Mentor Leader. , 2010. Internet resource.

Henriksen, Kristoffer, Natalia Stambulova, and Kirsten Kaya Roessler. "Successful talent development in track and field: considering the role of environment." Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports 20.s2 (2010): 122-132.

Hernez-Broome, Gina, and Lisa A. Boyce. Advancing Executive Coaching: Setting the Course for Successful Leadership Coaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2011. Internet resource.