WABC TEAM COACHING COMPETENCIES

The team coaching competencies are divided into three areas:  

• Knowing Oneself—Self-Management, Development & Awareness
• Core Team Coaching Skill-Base
• Systemic Awareness

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

KNOWING ONESELF – SELF-MANAGEMENT, Development & Awareness

A. Acknowledging Your Strengths and Self-Development Needs

1. Having a realistic perception of your strengths and limitations and showing a commitment to continuous learning and self-development

1. Know your strengths and less-developed areas, your abilities and limitations
2. Seek out and act on constructive feedback to support your understanding of areas for development
3. Have a personal development plan as a team coach and undertake continuous professional development

2. Engaging in supervision

1. Identify issues to take to supervision
2. Work with a supervisor at intervals commensurate with volume of team coaching practice
3. Apply learning from supervision in developing your professional practice

B. Self-Awareness in Context of the Team

3. Recognizing and addressing parallel processing in team-coach dynamic

1. Be aware of and process own internal reactions (emotions, cognitions or physiological responses) arising in the moment to preserve neutrality and systemic clarity
2. Pause and bring parallel processes to the surface
3. Act as neutral observer in the midst of parallel processing

CORE TEAM COACHING SKILL-BASE

C. Establishing the Foundations for Team Coaching

4. Working within established ethical guidelines and professional standards

1. Abide by the ethical guidelines, standards and code of conduct of your own professional association and others
2. Invest in the continued development of your ethical awareness
3. Determine whether there is an appropriate match between your own background and coaching style and the prospective team’s needs and expectations
4. Are capable of articulating the circumstances under which you would not take an assignment and instead recommend alternative actions (such as one-to-one coaching for the team leader)
5. Establish a formal coaching agreement/contract with all relevant stakeholders (e.g., sponsors, team leader(s), team members) that creates stakeholder alignment and reflects the organizational context and assignment needs
6. Apply an ethical decision-making framework to help teams recognize and address ethical issues

D. Working with Evidence-Based Theories & Models Specific to the Team Coaching Context

5. Applying core principles of teaming and team dynamics

1. Understand and apply core principles of psychological safety
2. Use appropriate tools and techniques to bring difficult topics to the surface and facilitate them being addressed
3. Enable the team to recognize its own dynamics
4. Raise collective awareness of the team
5. Understand and work with the internal and external factors that affect team performance
6. Adapt coaching process to pace of learning of individual members of the team and the team collectively
7. Foster and maintain open communication and sharing of knowledge
8. Support the team in establishing shared purpose
9. Encourage mutual accountability

6. Using evidence-based models of team performance

1. Are able to distinguish between models which are evidenced-based and those which are not
2. Ground approach in behavioral science, psychology and organizational research

7. Recognizing the context of team coaching as distinct from other interventions

1. Are able to articulate how team coaching is distinct from individual coaching and other team-related interventions (e.g., group coaching, team facilitation, consultancy and team building)
2. Focus on the collective performance of the team around a shared goal(s)
3. Clarify with the team when it is appropriate for additional individual coaching in parallel with team coaching

8. Applying framework consistent with evolution of team coaching assignment

1. Use a clear model of the stages of a team coaching assignment
2. Draw on an extensive toolkit of team coaching approaches
3. Select and administer relevant evidence-based team diagnostics, understanding their relative strengths and weaknesses
4. Distinguish between the roles of team coach and team leader and avoid crossing the boundaries
5. Educate the team in its role in making team coaching work
6. Bring the assignment to positive conclusion

E. Supporting Team Dynamics Development

9. Creating understanding of the specific team and business/organizational context

1. Use coherent approach to data gathering in applying robust method of discovery, through interviews with team and stakeholders, observing team meetings and appropriate diagnostics
2. Apply evidence from discovery interviews and own experience to provide the team with an analysis of its strengths, weaknesses and issues to address so it can determine its priorities for team coaching
3. Draw from your own business/organizational experience to understand the team and the system of which it is part

10. Managing the team coaching process

1. Demonstrate flexibility to re-contract during and between team coaching sessions in the moment
2. Scope the assignment with the team in terms of what is possible to achieve within the duration of the engagement and establish clear understanding of the priority issues to address
3. Clarify with the team when it is appropriate for additional individual coaching in parallel
4. Promote alignment between purpose of team coaching with wider business/organizational goals by initiating dialogue about role and purpose of team within corporate structure
5. Demonstrate the ability to transfer ownership of the process from the team coach to the team
6. Observe and respond with flexibility to group dynamics (e.g., using temporary sub-groups) and make team aware of them
7. Demonstrate understanding of the many aspects of diversity (race, gender, neurodiversity, etc.), apply good practice in harnessing diversity and support the team in actively fostering an inclusive environment

11. Observing and giving feedback

1. Establish and implement a process for observing the team in action
2. Identify potential improvements in team processes, collaboration and behavior
3. Demonstrate effective skills in delivering feedback
4. Introduce gradual shift from providing feedback to empowering team to generate its own

12. Evaluating outcomes

1. Assist the team to establish clear outcomes it wants to achieve from team coaching
2. Employ a robust method to evaluate both the outcomes of team coaching and the quality of coaching delivery
3. Empower the client team to undertake its own evaluation
4. Evaluate at three levels: Performance (improvements in current dynamics and outcomes); Capability (enabling future performance); and Capacity (achieving more with less)

13. Managing the co-coaching arrangement

1. Contract and recontract with co-coaches, before, during and after sessions
2. Co-plan each team coaching intervention
3. Co-review each team coaching session
4. Attend, where appropriate, supervision as a team coach pair
5. Role model teaming behaviors as a team coach pair

systemic awareness

F. Working with Complex Organizational Systems

14. Amplifying team’s awareness of the wider system

1. Assist team in identifying its stakeholders and determine strategies for increased alignment
2. Support the team’s recognition of its interdependence with other people and processes in the business/organization
3. Help team to see its position and the business/organization through various viewpoints and perspectives

15. Understanding systems theory and complex, adaptive systems

1. Appreciate the difference between simple, complicated, complex and chaotic systems in the context of business/organizational decision-making and support team’s understanding of the same
2. Apply a systems perspective to identify wider patterns of activity (internal and external) that help or hinder achievement