How to Adapt your Coaching to different Personality Types
By Cristina Dragomir, PCC
When I started my first coach training course almost eight years ago it quickly became clear that this learning journey would continue and become even more fulfilling and significant in future. One question that I had constantly in mind was: “What is the next step forward that will help me grow and better serve my coaching clients?”
You may be searching - just like me - for what can help you grow and sharpen your coaching skills.
Every new coach training course we take helps us develop new “muscles” of listening and asking questions. With each new coaching conversation we’re growing our capacity to be fully present with the client and make our partnership more engaging and creative for their maximum benefit.
One of the most valuable competencies that we as coaches need to develop is adaptability. Being able to adapt your coaching style to the client’s needs, values, culture and personality gives you a new competitive advantage and differentiates you as a coach.
Let’s zero in on just one aspect of adaptability: adapting to different personality types. Take a moment and think of one of your coaching clients whose personality preferences are very different from yours. Perhaps their communication style is concise and straightforward rather than conceptual and abstract. You notice that they prefer to process things externally rather than inwardly. They thrive on closure vs. flexible process; and focus on subjective vs. objective factors when making decisions.
Our ability as coaches to ask questions that fit our clients’ personality type therefore impacts the whole coaching process: from setting a clear agreement, to defining a goal, exploring the topic, making decisions, and moving forward through actions!
Being able to adapt one’s coaching to the client is a key element of the ICF Competency #4, Cultivating Trust and Safety. Acknowledging the clients’ unique talents, insights and work in the coaching process requires new awareness and capabilities from the coach.
Adaptability means we learn to flex our coaching style based on awareness of what each client brings to the conversation - their perception about themselves and their world (PCC marker 6.5 Listens actively). Understanding personality gives us a common language that can help us quickly adapt to every client we work with.
The Personality Types Coaching course is a brand new course that can help you gain a better understanding of your own personality type and your clients’ personality types. You’ll learn how to adapt your coaching style to your clients’ energy and pace; ask questions that better fit your clients’ communication style; adapt to your clients’ decision making preferences; and move forward in ways that fit your clients’ approach to personal and professional growth.
Another great opportunity you can benefit from in your growth as a coach is - Intro to Coaching with Cultural Intelligence. This course will increase your ability to coach across cultures, using reading, reflection, discussion, and practice, peer sessions and one individual coaching session.
