WABC LEADER-AS-COACH COACHING COMPETENCIES

The leader-as-coach coaching competencies are divided into four areas:  

• Self-Management
• Core Coaching Skill-Base
• Business and Leadership Capabilities
• Dual Role Focus

Each area includes a listing of competencies. Each competency is illustrated by examples of the behavior expected of a proficient leader-as-coach. The competencies provide a framework against which individuals can map their training and experience.

Self-Management  

1. Self-regulating: managing your reactions and emotions constructively

1. Maintain self-control under adverse or stressful conditions (e.g., maintain demeanor, composure and temperament)
2. Manage your own behavior to prevent or reduce feelings of stress
3. Accept negative feedback without becoming defensive 

2. Adapting and agility

1. Demonstrate flexibility in handling change
2. Demonstrate understanding of and ability to adapt to rapidly changing roles, shifting power, dynamics and ambiguous contexts

3. Recognizing the limits of your own competence

1. Appreciate that a team member’s individual circumstances may warrant an approach better handled by an external coaching or other professional (e.g., who may be within or outside the organization via a referral) when appropriate
2. Build core coaching competencies at the individual level before seeking to coach teams, recognizing that additional training might be necessary

4. Maintaining positive focus

1. See the positive aspects of things and the future
2. Facilitate environment of “lessons being learned” rather than failure

5. Building an achievement mindset

1. Set challenging goals
2. Maintain commitment to goals in the face of obstacles and frustrations
3. Work to meet standards of excellence

6. Managing conflict effectively

1. Give all sides a voice
2. Adopt a constructive problem-solving approach to resolving disagreements
3. Keep communication channels open and follow up upon resolution or compromise

Core Coaching Skill-Base  

7. Establishing trust

1. Actively demonstrate respect, fairness and transparency
2. Act in a trustworthy manner
3. Actively facilitate understanding of each other’s goals and how best to help each other to achieve them
4. Establish clear and fair agreements and keep promises

8. Facilitating shift from fixed to growth mindset

1. Encourage the team member to think deeply and creatively, to look for new or different approaches to take
2. Ensure that the coaching conversation leaves the team member feeling motivated to apply their learning

9. Practicing empathy

1. Actively seek to understand the team member from their perspective
2. Offer non-judgmental responses that encourage the team member to explore and validate their feelings, concerns and aspirations
3. Take account of non-verbal signals (body language, facial expressions, tone, etc.) to check for understanding
4. Listen to and notice the team member’s emotional undercurrents and take an interest in them

10. Shifting from problem focus to solution focus

1. Support the team member in thinking of alternative solutions to problems and challenges
2. Stay focused on finding a solution when under pressure and support the team member to do the same

11. Leveraging strengths

1. Focus on supporting the team member to leverage their strengths rather than emphasizing a perceived weakness

12. Encouraging the setting of challenging goals

1. Help the team member to set goals which both support development and growth and are achievable
2. Help the team member to maintain commitment to goals in the face of obstacles and frustrations
3. Help the team member to constantly seek ways to improve performance

13. Engaging in open communication

1. Ensure that all communication with the team member is clear and meaningful in terms of intended outcomes
2. Recognize all opportunities for coaching communication including both longer formal sessions and ad-hoc informal coaching conversations

14. Delivering effective feedback

1. Create a reflective space to facilitate learning from feedback and experience
2. Give constructive feedback to support improvement in performance
3. Deliver feedback in a non-judgmental manner

15. Facilitating understanding

1. Add order, clarity, depth of understanding and perspective to problematic situations
2. Help the team member to look at the broader context of issues or problems
3. Help the team member to recognize the impact of their thoughts and feelings on behavior
4. Enable the team member to discover the thoughts, feelings and behaviors that will help them to achieve meaningful outcomes

16. Listening to understand

1. Demonstrate active listening by seeking clarification, rephrasing the team member’s statements and summarizing to check understanding
2. Encourage the team member to “say more” – create a positive climate for the team member to express their feelings, perceptions, concerns and suggestions
3. Acknowledge the team member’s ideas and suggestions and build on them in discussions
4. Pay attention to what the team member isn’t saying about issues discussed

17. Questioning effectively

1. Pose open-ended questions that help the team member to clarify issues
2. Ask questions that help the team member to develop new perspectives and new possibilities for action and learning
3. Ask questions that evoke commitment to action
4. Ask questions that steer the team member towards their desired outcomes

Business and Leadership Capabilities

18. Creating a positive learning environment

1. Champion the development of useful learning and training supports within the organization
2. Encourage subject matter expertise
3. Support the documentation of best practices for developmental and learning purposes
4. Help the team member to determine a challenging yet realistic pace of learning

19. Aligning coaching with the business

1. Identify and set coaching and development priorities within the context of organizational and business needs

20. Promoting and encouraging teamwork

1. Understand the importance of inclusion and belonging
2. Model and encourage working with others toward shared goals
3. Recognize group synergy in pursuit of collective goals

21. Supporting techno-generational learning

1. Recognize generational differences in the use of technology
2. Support coaching and learning in relation to emerging technologies (e.g., on-line coaching)

22. Elevating organizational system awareness

1. Understand and take account of the wider system
2. Consider stakeholders as part of decision making
3. Be prepared to raise systemic issues with stakeholders when these present obstacles to a team member being able to achieve objectives
4. Understand the emotional and power dynamics within the system
5. Help the team member to see their position and the organization through various viewpoints and perspectives

23. Recognizing and acting on the development needs of others

1. Actively seek to understand development needs to enhance capabilities
2. Take action as appropriate to meet those needs 

24. Acting as a strong and influential role model

1. Seek consistently to inspire and motivate others
2. Build and use persuasion to create buy-in
3. Model and demonstrate leadership behaviors in ways that enable the team member to enact these behaviors for themselves

25. Respecting culture and diversity

1. Be aware of how cultural dynamics influence business processes, interactions and outcomes
2. Demonstrate personal commitment to treating people equally and with respect and dignity
3. Understand potential preferences and biases associated with your own racial, sexual and cultural identity, and how these might impact on coaching

Dual Role Focus

26. Applying directive and non-directive approaches

1. Recognize the need for coaching interventions and the power of a non-directive approach as part of leadership and coaching roles
2. Recognize the value of both directive and non-directive approaches and take account of appropriateness of their respective uses
3. Be capable of shifting from directing to empowering which allows for team member autonomy

27. Managing the power imbalance

1. Recognize the existence of the dual role of Leader-as-Coach
2. Does not misuse power to the detriment of the team member or the organization
3. Recognize the inherent difference in power held by the leader and the team member

SOME BACKGROUND

Since 1997, WABC has been committed to defining and leading business coaching excellence. We’ve spent years on in-depth research, literature reviews and consultations with some of the world’s top business coaches and their clients to create evidence-based standards for professional business coaches.

In 2023, we engaged a WABC Research Team to undertake a further in-depth literature review and research into leaders-as-coaches. One result of this immense effort is the draft list of evidence-based leader-as-coach coaching competencies* in June 2024. This list of competencies is based on the real-world tasks of leaders-as-coaches in small and large businesses, governments, institutions, nonprofits–any organizations where they practice. From later-2024 to later-2025, this list will undergo further validation through our pilot accreditation process involving a select group of training providers from around the world. Once the pilot is completed, we’ll finalize and publish this list.

*The WABC Leader-as-Coach Coaching Competencies also include appropriate competencies and competencies’ indicators from the WABC Business Coaching Competencies.