In either personal or professional coaching, the method is the same: the coach assists the client throughout the development process. Whether that be breaking past beliefs that keep the client stuck in life or helping them along the path to a specific goal, helping a client through this process will require two key things. The first is an understanding of where the client currently resides in their life, relationships, career, etc., and the second is a clear vision of where the client intends to go.
These two concepts, especially the client’s current standing, can be clarified thanks to assessment insights providing the opportunity for greater self-awareness and self-reflection. The client’s responses can help them organize their self-perceptions in a way that makes sense. Understanding oneself on a deeper, more clearly defined level provides a thorough baseline and frame of reference that both coach and client can refer to throughout the coaching process. A considerate coach can relate assessment insights to a client’s starting point and use them to work with the client in setting clear, actionable, and attainable goals.
One type of insight provided by an assessment is a client’s strengths. Some clients may be aware of their strengths already while others have trouble pinpointing them, so having data-driven assessments provide unbiased feedback in that area can deepen a client’s self-understanding or strengthen their already idealized self-perceptions. Either way, knowing a client’s objective strengths allows a coach to prioritize a path to the client’s goals that utilize those strengths. Doing this can help a client experience small victories along the path to their ultimate goal, because they are getting to operate in their strengths, and these small wins can help keep them motivated throughout the coaching process.
Assessment insights can also clearly define a client’s weaknesses. This is very valuable knowledge for a coach to have because many people are unable to see their own blind spots. The weaknesses the assessment reveals may be the very traits keeping the client from being able to achieve their goals. The data-driven nature of assessment results removes emotion and distorted self-perception from the equation, providing accurate and objective insights the coach can use. Depending on the goals of the client, a coach may or may not choose to focus on areas of weakness. If it is something that must be improved for a client to reach their ultimate goal, then the coach can develop appropriate routines and structures to help the client improve over time, with realistic benchmarks set along the way. If the weakness does not directly relate to the client’s goals, it can be kept in mind by the coach as part of the overall picture of a client and addressed only as needed.
Coaching involves people and people can get messy, especially when it comes to addressing pain points that could be keeping someone in a holding pattern, or at least not reaching their full potential. Personality traits, cognitive biases, and inherent aptitudes play a big role in how an individual’s path to success will look, and people are generally less objective in their self-awareness than we’d all like to believe. However, objectivity and gaining a clear picture of someone’s challenges, strengths, personal proclivities, and blind spots are vital to any coach building a successful plan for their client.
That’s where the value of assessment insights comes into play in the coaching process–the data-driven results provide a clear starting point as well as routine measurements of the client’s progression as the coaching process goes on. Assessment data can be used to develop the areas in which a client can improve while helping them finesse the skills they already possess.
If you’re looking for proven assessments to use in your coaching practice, look no further than Talexes Talassure Assessments. Talexes offers a wide variety of assessments that focus on multiple facets of the employee lifecycle, so there’s something for everyone no matter your goals. Explore Talexes Talassure Assessments and begin applying assessment insights to your coaching today!
