What is the difference between doing coaching and being a coach? In short, doing coaching is the technical tasks and actions. Being a coach goes deeper and involves truly embodying coaching competencies, ethics, and a coaching mindset. Becoming a coach starts with doing and evolves with being.
When doing coaching, the ethics, competencies, and markers are nice to have resources. While ideally, they are applied, it is more superficial. Being a coach means the ethics, competencies, and markers are fully ingrained and embodied as a natural and authentic part of the coach.
Initially learning to do coaching involves standardized questionnaires. This evolves to asking questions in the moment based on the conversation. Doing coaching may mean the questions are more surface level and sometimes more focused on tasks. Being a coach means the questions go below the surface and evoke more awareness. Questions when being a coach fully incorporate the whole person.
Initially, when doing coaching, there may be a desire to go in a certain direction or for a certain solution. As the coach evolves to being a coach, they confidently hold the client as fully capable and ensure the client chooses, the focus and direction of the conversation, does the exploration, and discovers their own solutions.
When doing coaching there is a focus on the performance of the coach. When being a coach the focus is completely on serving the client. The competencies of Embodies a Coaching Mindset and Maintains Presence both speak to being a coach and in turn support the competencies of Listens Actively, Evokes Awareness, and Facilitates Client Growth.
Being a coach requires confidence and curiosity developed through a growth process during coach training and while coaching; while leaning and doing coaching, the coach evolves to being a coach. The goal for coaches is to start with doing and grow to being a coach thus serving clients in the best way possible.
