All coaches offered for your consideration have biographies and are competent and capable professionals. However, they may not all fit your coaching needs. Therefore, it is important for you to interview the coach or coaches who seem to align most with your interests. This will give both you and the coach(es) the opportunity to explore suitability to meet your needs.
The following list of questions is for your consideration as you interview the coaches:
- Tell me about your education, certifications related to coaching.
- Tell me about your experience coaching leaders.
- How does your coaching process work?
- What is your coaching style?
- Tell me about an experience in which you coached someone similar to me—include the process and outcomes
- How would we ensure that our expectations would be the same?
- How do you define success in a coaching engagement?
- What types of assessments will you use to gather information about me?
- How much work will be involved in this process?
- How much of the information you gather during our coaching will be shared with my manager?
- How will I know when the process is complete?
- What other questions should I be asking?
A second step that works well during the interview is to actually be coached by the coach. Following are some guidelines for you to consider:
- Plan to be coached for 15-20 minutes.
- Identify a real, work-related issue for which you would like to be coached.
- Be open to the coaching process. Really work on the issue with the coach. And, take some chances.
- End the conversation when you have what you need.
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