When it comes to coaching relationships between the client and the coach, there are many methods available to implement.  The coaching path that is chosen will have a significant impact on what results the client will achieve. Regardless of the prescribed methodology, there are four pillars of quality coaching that are a definite requirement for each path to be successful:

1. 1. The Client is naturally creative, resourceful and whole. One goal of the coach and the process is to work forward with the goal to raise the awareness of the client’s strengths.  Often the client has strengths that exist but the client has yet to discover these strengths – they simply aren’t aware of them yet and need a coach to bring these strengths into visibility.
   2. Professional coaching addresses the client’s whole life and the entire person. The decisions that the client makes bring them either closer to or further from their intended goals.  There are two important variables in addressing positive and long-lasting transformation:
      1. Balance – Clients are often unaware that they are out of balance. An honest way of addressing this imbalance is utilizing the Wheel of Life, a tool that evaluates the client’s important “compartments” of their life and exposes where the client may be out of balance. These are all linked and affect one another.  Is the client moving towards balance or away from balance today?
      2. Process – life is a continual process. Ever-changing, ever-evolving.  Acceptance of this fact is paramount to accepting change and its ramifications.
   3. The agenda comes from the Client. The role of the coach also entails ensuring that the agenda does not get lost in the ebb and flow.  The coach must confine expertise to the Coaching Process.
   4. The Coaching Relationship is a designed alliance. Power is granted to the coaching relationship and the client, not the coach.  This confidential process is critical in achieving the intended results. The coach needs to connect, not just communicate.  The coach/client will form a bond and provide power to the relationship; the client in turn also receives power back.  Note that the coach does not receive power back as that is not within the intended agenda.

Lasting change, or transformation, takes time.  It’s agriculture that requires cultivating the soil, planting, feeding, and harvesting.  A strong Coaching relationship is based on these pillars that are designed to create this long-term change in order for the Client to realize their intended transformation.