Adaptive Coaching: The Art and Practice of a Client-Centered Approach to Performance Improvement 52071st Edition

Taking a client-centered approach to coaching is not difficult if coaches are open to using different methods (directive vs. nondirective, programmatic vs. circumstantial, specific vs. holistic). However, most people coach the way they were coached themselves, and they often don’t see the alternatives. So we wrote this book to explore the different styles of coaching and when coaches should use them.

We intended it to be a practical and useful guide, so we included numerous coaching dialogues taken from actual sessions. We also described how effective coaches listen, ask insightful questions, give clients feedback, reflect on their observations of clients’ behavior, offer advice, and confront clients. Finally, we offer a human change model that gives coaches a practical way to help their clients make lasting behavioral changes.

We close by discussing how to adapt your coaching style to diverse clients: cross-cultural, cross-generational, women and minorities, and C-level executives. We show that no matter what your own makeup as a coach, you must be adaptive when you coach people who differ from you in some important ways.