People Who Think They’re Great Coaches Often Aren’t. That’s the title of an article from the Harvard Business Review. Got you thinking about whether you’re a good coach? 🙂
The scenario at the very beginning of the article I found really funny.
Basically, a person describes themselves as a pretty good coach. When asked why, the response is they “…attended a coaching course and learned many of the techniques of good coaching.”
This story reminds me of a very early Volleyball Coaching Wizards interview I conducted. In it, Portuguese coach Paolo Cunha talked about people thinking they were coaches just because they’d done a course or gotten a certification, as we discussed issues with coaching education.
Getting to the main point of the article, researchers did a test. They had people assess their own skills. Then they had others assess them. About a quarter of the folks involved overrated themselves. Not only were they not as good as they thought, but they actually ended up in the bottom third based on the external assessments. This is pretty classic overconfidence, a topic which featured heavily in my PhD research.
To summarize the findings, “…if you think you’re a good coach but you actually aren’t, this data suggests you may be a good deal worse than you imagined.”
The article continues on, suggesting…
“Bursting the bubble of your illusion of superiority could be highly advantageous to your continued development as a leader. In fact, this is the best reason to find a way to obtain honest feedback about your coaching skills.”
So what are the problem areas? The article provides a list I encourage you to read. Not surprisingly, communication and working with others rank high. Integrity is in there as well (this post is also worth a look).
Interestingly, the people who underrated their own abilities scored above average in their assessed ability (57% percentile). What do you make of that?
I think it speaks to an attitude of continuous development. Coaches who do not think they are great are more likely to keep learning. They look at their weaknesses and seek to improve upon them. Sounds like a good mindset to me!
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