Coach

A genuine warmth and interest in people

Visionaries GROUP

Coach is one of a group of Character Types that we call Visionaries. The Visionaries, in turn, form a group within our overall Character Family as shown right:

CHARACTER SUMMARY 

The Coach has high drive, bundles of energy and a commitment to ‘the cause,’ (whatever that cause is) which borders on the evangelical. Their energy levels only increase the more functions they have to attend, the more people they have to meet and the more activities they have to organise. They can juggle masses of activities and tasks at any one time, rarely dropping the ball and making sure each activity is given the right amount of attention and loving care. The Coach is the action-oriented, people-centred character. They will look for and make connections between people, be excellent glue for the team and make sure that everything is planned, scheduled and organised. A Coach is astutely empathetic, picking up on the nuances and making sure people are happy.

They are great at getting on and doing, with a much more people focus than task focus, but with no less energy, commitment or vigour. Articulate and confident, the Coach will be persuasive and tenacious; the one voted leader or committee chair-person; everyone knows they can depend on the Coach.

As they are essentially people-driven, the Coach may suffer at times from being a little subjective and lacking a colder, slightly more dispassionate objective eye on proceedings. The Coach may also bite off more than they can chew as their first priority might be to say ‘yes’ and take the pain away for others. This may also lead to the Coach feeling weighed down by the amount of work to which they have committed and so see themselves as under-appreciated.

They want to please, impress and make sure things run like clockwork and when others let them down the Coach can be very disappointed. This desire to ‘do good’ can also mean that the Coach sees pleasing others as far more important than pleasing themselves and so they may run the risk of trading off honesty for harmony, keeping the peace rather than telling it like it is.

WHAT YOU WILL SEE

The flexibility of the Coach characteristics means that they have great choice in the work roles they assume. However it is the nature of the environment that will determine success, the Coach will need a supportive environment in which they can work with people and be presented with sufficient diverse challenges to stimulate their creativity. Then we will see the organised, supportive people-centric Coach flourish and offer real value in terms of getting things done, ploughing through inordinate amounts of work and ensuring the routine - and the needs of people - are taken care of.

• A genuine warmth and interest in people
• They value peoples’ feelings, but also need approval
• A desire for structure, organisation, variety and new challenges
• They value harmony, and will be good at creating it
• Exceptionally good people skills
• Loyalty and honesty
• A creative and imaginative approach
• They get personal satisfaction from helping others
• However, they can be sensitive to criticism and discord

WHAT COMES EASY

The Coach is the people organiser, warm, harmonious and an enthusiastic champion of people who just wants to ‘do good.’ They make sure the needs of the people are paramount, placed in pole position on the agenda, and taken care of. They are excellent networkers who tune into what others want and are generally well-liked and popular among their colleagues. They have an innate sense of what is required, can genuinely make others feel really special and can generally be found at the emotional heart of a group or body and will be the one making sure things get done.

• Strong verbal communication skills
• Very perceptive about people's thoughts and motives
• Bringing out the best in others
• Fun to be with - lively sense of humour, dramatic, energetic, optimistic
• Loyalty and commitment
• Motivating, inspiring and supporting other people
• Expressing their feelings clearly
• Trying to always find the solution which works for everyone
• The ability to see many facets of a problem and how it might be resolved for the best

WHAT NEEDS DEVELOPING

Nearly all of the problematic characteristics exhibited by the Coach can be attributed in various degrees to the common Coach problem of wanting to find the ‘proper’ value in everything. If the Coach does not learn how to see beneath the appearance of what they quickly judge as good or bad about the people and situations in their external environment, they will only use their introverted intuition to support those judgements they feel are good for them and disregard other possibilities.

• Allowing others to make mistakes, resisting the urge to be over protective
• Being objective and open minded about suggestions and ideas from others
• Thinking of themselves and their own needs above those of others from time to time
• Giving others headroom, particularly when suggesting solutions to problems/issues
• Being more sensitive to their environment and what is going on around them
• Confronting difficult situations/conflict head on rather than avoiding it
• Being more overt about their own positive contribution to success