• University of Illinois

• Calendar
• Contact Us
• Staff
• Log In

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Illinois Leadership Center

• Search ILC

• Coaching Philosophy
• The Process of Coaching
• What Do Coaches Actually Do?
• Coaching Do's and Don'ts
• What Do I Do If...?
• Coach Manual

What Do Coaches Actually Do?

There are five priority areas in which Certificate Coaches should spend their time while working with their students. Based on Peterson & Hicks's Leader as Coach: Strategies for Coaching and Developing Others, these five areas are certainly not exhaustive. However, they are meant to provide a roadmap for creating and maintaining a productive working relationship with your assigned Leadership Certificate student(s) for the duration of their time working together.

1. FORGE A PARTNERSHIP. Before anything else, coaches need to establish a comfortable working relationship with their students. Spend time getting to know your student on a personal as well as professional level. This helps to establish trust and helps you better understand your student's goals, strengths, and development areas. Once you have begun to establish trust and rapport, you can begin the process of determining how the two of you will best work together. This should involve not only learning from the student what they look to from you as the coach, but sharing with the student how you are most comfortable within the coaching relationship as well.
2. INSPIRE COMMITMENT. Coaches should share their insights and give students the motivation necessary to complete the program. Many successful coaches state that they rarely motivate their students directly, but rather do so through helping students recognize the personal payback they receive through participation in the program and in working on their personal leadership objectives.
3. GROW SKILLS. At the foundation of the coaching relationship is the ability to help students develop the skills they determine to be their objectives within the program. Often, this involves helping students find the best ways to acquire those skills, not necessarily imparting those skills themselves.
4. PROMOTE PERSISTENCE. The Certificate program is not meant as a simple check-list curriculum; students may need a little push every so often to stay on track and working on their goals. Changing behavior requires consistent effort and attention. Coaches help students stay involved in registering for programs and academic courses, and ensure that they create and maintain their ongoing timeline towards program completion.
5. HELP SHAPE THE ENVIRONMENT. Students may create powerful learning goals, but often need help from coaches in managing the environmental changes necessary for them to sustain behavior change. A student working on interpersonal skills may attend Intersect and enroll in Leadership In Groups and Teams, but may need support from her coach in determining good ways to continue learning about and applying team-oriented leadership skills within her leadership experiences.

If you'd like to learn more, check out a book at the Leadership Resource Library , attend a Coach Connections session, or contact staff at the Illinois Leadership Center.