Personality assessments have been proven to be an extremely effective tool in the coaching setting when it comes to discovering your style as a professional coach and the best way to approach different types of clients. Although personality assessments are not used by all business and life coaches, The Advisory Board has placed a heavy emphasis upon these instruments in the Coaching Jump Start program. Here are a few reasons why.
Understand Your Client’s Personality Type
Many coaches rely entirely on time-proven questioning and listening techniques in order to get know their client, but a growing number of professionals are now including personality assessments in their coaching toolkit in order to streamline the process. Popular personality assessments like DISC cut to the core of a client’s motivations and values so that both the coach and the client can understand the basics of what makes a client tick.
Coaches can refer back to a client’s assessment results from time to time throughout the coaching process as a road map for addressing his or her aspirations, challenges and options in order to uncover the best way forward. This is particularly helpful when you are choosing the right kinds of probing questions to best draw a client out when you are breaching a difficult or uncomfortable topic.
Understand Your Own Personality Type
Before you can start helping others reach their goals as a business or life coach, it is crucial that you have an accurate understanding of your own personality and behavior. No matter how well you believe that you know yourself, the truth of the matter is that we all have a few key personality traits that everyone else can see even if we can’t. Personality assessments draw back the curtain so that you can finally see the full picture of how your personal values and motivations effect your actions and communication style.
Cater Your Coaching Style to Specific Personality Types
While personality assessments can serve as an invaluable resource when it comes to getting to know yourself and your clients, many coaches find the results of these tests to be particularly useful when it comes to communicating effectively with different personality types. For example, clients who clearly have a controlling personality will be much more receptive to a direct and efficient communication style, while using a detail oriented approach will be more productive with analytical clients.