Material for reading “Using the appropriate coaching techniques and methods in work with female learners”

3.1 Coaching techniques and methods, use of online training course

Adult coaching requires the knowledge of coaching styles, techniques and methods. The coaching style is about inspiring the learners, building their confidence, and teaching them the skills they need in order to develop and work together successfully while ensuring they feel supported by the adult educator-coach along the way. A competent adult educator-coach shows good communication and social skills - as constructive feedback is important in this leadership style -approach but the most successful coach will also ask questions of their learners to encourage brainstorming and problem-solving. Coaching methods can be an effective way to tackle a workplace culture that feels at best unproductive and at worst, failing. With a strong focus on goals, personal and group development, and outcomes, the results often speak for themselves. Adult educator coaches may use one or several different coaching styles. But the most successful recognise that tailoring their style to their learners’ cultural background is the best way to ensure good results. The main coaching styles are the following:

  • Democratic coaching: This method gives the learners freedom and accountability, with the coach stepping in only when needed to keep the process going. Individuals will feel self-empowered and in control and will be encouraged to give input.
  • Authoritarian coaching: In this approach, the coach decides what to do and when and how to do it. All that is required from the team is their understanding. With little to no input, learners are at risk of feeling disenfranchised and aren't encouraged to think for themselves, but this method instills discipline, rallies the team together, and by setting clear goals, has a strong focus on the outcome.
  • Holistic coaching: When it comes to life coaching styles, holistic coaching leads the way. With the belief that everything is connected, this approach theorises that individuals are a sum of all their parts: in order to encourage personal growth, the balance needs to be achieved in all aspects of their life. As well as giving learners a sense of their professional career, it can give perspective on their place in the social and cultural context as well, helping them feel more confident and showing them how they matter. It can shine a spotlight on personal problems and repetitive behaviours that might be negatively affecting training and job search, as well as offering solutions like stress management, and relaxation techniques.
  • Vision coaching: This style encourages and empowers learners by giving them clear direction and strategies for achieving objectives and encouraging focus. Like a personal trainer, this approach feels like a partnership and draws on elements of feedback, reflection, and conversation to really motivate and influence learners.

Moving forward, the adult coach should acknowledge and master key coaching skills in order to apply them. Here is a list:

  • Goal setting: Coaching is a goal-focused approach, so the ability to elicit clear, well-defined and emotionally engaging goals from a learner is one of the most important skills for a coach to possess. Like many aspects of coaching, there are both formal and informal versions of this skill. On the formal side, a coach needs to know how and when to introduce goal setting into the coaching process and will usually be familiar with models such as SMART goals (a SMART goal is Specific, Measurable, Attractive, Realistic and Timed). On the informal side, a coach will typically have the habit of thinking and asking questions from a goal-focused mindset.
  • Looking: A good deal is rightly written about the importance of listening in coaching but looking is often overlooked. For instance, the person’s body language tells a huge amount about his emotional state and level of commitment, yet it is so easy to ignore that if the coach is too focused on his/her own ideas about what needs to happen next.
  • Listening: This is often referred to as active listening to emphasise the difference between passively taking in what the other person is saying and actively engaging with them and showing that you are giving them your undivided attention. This involves putting your own concerns and ideas ‘in a box’ while you listen, so can be particularly challenging for manager-coaches, but it’s a skill well worth developing.
  • Empathising: Empathy develops naturally out of looking and listening. By doing this attentively, the coach can start to get a sense of the other person’s emotional state. Some people experience empathy as a powerful physical (scientists have linked this phenomenon to the operation of mirror neurons). The ability to empathise is critical for a good adult coach, as it not only helps the coach to accept the other person on their own terms, but also sometimes to ‘tune in’ to emotions and thoughts of which the learner is not fully aware.
  • Questioning: At the heart of coaching is a willingness to put aside one’s own ideas about the ‘best/right/obvious way’ to do something, and to ask a question to elicit someone else’s ideas about how to approach it. For learners, being asked a question can support in three ways:

  1. Focus attention – questions are not directive, but they are influential. They prompt the learner to look for a new idea or solution in a particular area. Experienced coaches are adept at using questions to help people step outside the ‘problem mindset’ and look for answers in unexpected places.
  2. Elicit new ideas – however ‘obvious’ the answer may seem to the coach, it’s amazing how often a learner will come up with several different and often better alternatives. Unless you ask the question, you risk leaving the learner’s creativity untapped.
  3. Foster commitment – there’s a huge difference between doing something because someone has told you to or suggested it, and doing something that you have dreamt up yourself. Even if a learner comes up with the same idea the coach had in mind, the fact that she has thought it through herself means she will have a much greater sense of ownership and commitment when putting into practice.

  • Giving feedback: the key to delivering effective coaching feedback is that it is observational and non-judgmental. When a coach provides clear, specific feedback about the learner’s actions and their consequences, then the chances are the learner will be perfectly capable of evaluating his performance for herself.

 

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3.2 Application of coaching techniques with female learners

Women face well-known barriers to career development. The causes of this imbalance are many and still debated. They include bias (both conscious and unconscious), structural barriers and organisational culture. In addition, research has found that women working in traditionally male-dominated industries and functions have access to fewer leadership development opportunities than men in those fields.

As a result, while 80 percent of women in science, engineering and technology report “loving their work,” the female attrition rate in such fields is higher than it is for men. In “high-tech” industries, they leave at more than twice the rate as men (41 percent compared to 17 percent).

Moreover, women’s employment rate is increasing in Europe but remains lower than men’s. In 2018, the employment rate for women (aged between 20-64) in the (EU) stood at 67%, one percentage-point (pp) increase from the previous year and 5 pp higher than in 2008. However, the employment rate for women was still 12 pp less than the corresponding rate for men of the same age.

What can a talented woman do when she tackles unemployment or troubles at work?

Coaching is the answer to these issues because it improves: professional performance, relationships, job seeking and self-confidence. Coaching is an increasingly popular strategy used to help talented women build their skills and advance in their careers. Many organizations make the investment themselves in coaching for their “high-potential” employees, and research has shown that coaching can be particularly effective in helping to narrow the gender gap in leadership development. In order to provide coaching to female learners, it is suggested to apply the one-on-one relationship in which a professional coach works with a learner to achieve personal and professional goals, providing feedback and direction that facilitates improvement. Recent research revealed promising data about coaching, especially regarding its potential to equalize leadership development access between men and women. In a 2017 survey, men were 50 percent more likely than women to say their leadership training was “very effective.” However, when respondents reported having received coaching as part of their leadership development, that difference almost disappeared.

 

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3.3 Maximise female learners’ potential to set goals

The main aim of each coaching programme is to maximise the learner’s potential to set goals and plans. Empowering women and girls to reach their full potential is fundamental in the social development of any society and it is indeed recognised by the United Nations (UN) as one of the Sustainable Development Goals (number 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls). To achieve that, coaching female learning is very useful.

It is important that the coach instruct female learners that their professional and personal success is a complement to how far she is willing to plan. Well-structured objectives are an intangible form of victory that adequately requires effective strategies and tactics. Dreams and visions that are reduced to writing (plan) make the journey to success a memorable one. A mind that is well accommodated by the future is the mindset that has already offloaded a plan on paper, not the one which has not.

Goal setting is critical to effective time and stress management strategies. Coaches will teach learners to take responsibility for their lives, will make them accountable for all events either unforeseen or controllable.

To do so, S.M.A.R.T goals are the blueprints of the objectives along with the steps you will take to achieve your goals. Goal setting follows the S-M-A-R-T criteria

  • SPECIFIC: Goals should be simplistically written and clearly define what you are going to do. Provide a distinct picture of the goal and clear guidance on action to increase success. Answer the questions- Who, Why, Where, When, Which.
  • MEASURABLE: Goals ought to be measurable so that you have self-confidence in achieving them. Measuring actions and progress can be an excellent motivator.
  • ACHIEVABLE: Goals should be achievable; they have to stretch you slightly so you feel challenged but defined well so that you can achieve them. You must possess the appropriate knowledge, skills and abilities needed to achieve the goals.
  • REALISTIC: Goals ought to measure outcome not activity. It should be slightly out of your grasp to challenge you to grow, but realistic.
  • TIME FRAME: Goals should be linked to a time frame that creates a practical sense of urgency, or results in tension between the current reality and the vision of a goal. Without such tension, the goal is unlikely to produce a relevant outcome. Getting a time frame allows you to evaluate your progress and restate your goals accordingly not to drift into others more pressing goals.

To set goals adopting the S-M-A-R-T criteria is the main and more effective strategy the coach should provide the female learners with. In addition, other key skills are self-motivation, time management, positive thinking, prioritisation.

 

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3.4 Monitoring of coaching process

Coaching Evaluation is a systematic way to determine the outcome and merit of effective coaching. Coaching is a dynamic and individual process. Learners’ plans and goals are never static because development and change are never linear. Goals will and should change and evolve during a coaching relationship.

To manage the upcoming deviations, it’s important to monitor and evaluate the ongoing process continuously. This helps to easily determine whether adaptive action and additional guidance are required. Monitoring is a process for systematically and continuously collecting information during the coaching process.

Monitoring in coaching includes collecting information to assess the coaching’s performance and the progress toward intended changes and goals. Measuring coaching effectiveness through the help of monitoring makes it very easy to find out whether circumstances during the process have changed or evolved. Through monitoring, coaches can adjust the next steps to the learner’s needs. Monitoring a learner’s progress can significantly improve the long-term success rate of learners and the quality of coaching.

First of all, for effective monitoring it is important that learners share thoughts, experiences and progress with the coach in an organized way and on a regular basis. It is enough to share tools like a weekly coaching evaluation form or coaching effectiveness questionnaire. Learners should answer and share them with the coach before the next session. After a few times, it becomes a routine and it trains and improves their awareness and focus on their real-life experiences. Consciousness is the key to a successful process.

A performance monitoring and coaching form sample could be a weekly review; a pre-session questionnaire; a shared to-do list.

When evaluating the effectiveness of coaching the following key points should be considered:

  • Efficiency: How are the sessions and inputs converted into actions and results?
  • Effectiveness: How far are the single steps taken contributing to achieving the desired outcomes?
  • Relevance: How are the experiences and results in line with the needs, priorities and aspirations of the client?
  • Impact: How significant is/was the change towards the accomplishment of the overall goal?
  • Benefit: How does the coaching’s impact compare with the wishes and needs of the client?
  • Sustainability: To what extent can the positive changes be expected to last after the coaching has been finished? Does a follow-up coaching make sense?

You can use these questions as a sample coaching evaluation form.

 

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