Coaching Guidelines &

Pre-Coaching Questionnaire

Before we begin our coaching sessions, I invite you to look over the Coaching Guidelines and Pre-Coaching Questionnaire below. The questionnaire is designed to give me an insight into your life and what you might need from coaching.

Coaching Guidelines

The coaching offered in connection with this contract is designed to provide you with 9 hours of coaching. You will receive 6 sessions. The duration of each session will be 1.5 hours.

Within this coaching framework, the aim is to provide you with a safe environment to explore challenges and opportunities for change and to help you to realise your full potential.

The sessions are designed to:

  • be informal and open

  • offer you a totally confidential environment in which you feel comfortable enough to use your coach as a sounding-board for your thoughts

  • provide you with guidance in exploring the areas of focus which you choose to address during the coaching programme  

The objectives of the coaching sessions are:

  • to facilitate and support your development

  • to allow open, honest and confidential exploration of the issues 

  • to encourage and support the implementation of personal development goals

I will work with you using a combination of approaches (also see my Coach’s undertakings below) including:

  • identifying the reality of where you are now as well helping you to define your values and goals 

  • exploring all options open to you and then helping you decide on your way forward, working towards consciously set objectives

  • helping you to understand, clarify and master the behaviours and emotions which will help you towards greater achievement and management success

  • supporting you in overcoming any challenges and embedding any behavioural changes which you desire 

As Coach, I undertake to:

  • commit totally to supporting you during coaching sessions in moving towards achieving your goals

  • respond to your needs and agenda and NOT to impose an agenda on you

  • actively listen and help you explore your ideas without imposing my own

  • ask questions to get you to explore issues more deeply

  • support but also challenge you

  • relate to you with respect, dignity, integrity and compassion

  • manage the coaching assignment in a professional manner

  • keep everything you may say and write fully confidential, unless otherwise specifically agreed by you in advance or required by law and not to intrude into areas you wish to keep private until invited to do so

  • help you work things out for yourself and avoid giving you instructions on how to act

  • help you establish what help you want/need and how you might access it 

  • avoid jumping to conclusions or being judgmental

  • help you explore options and the advantages/disadvantages of different courses of action

  • encourage you to reflect on specific experiences in order to learn from them

  • encourage you to set learning objectives

  • help you identify, plan and prioritise how to meet your development needs

  • provide you with constructive feedback as and when appropriate

  • work in accordance Coaching Code of Ethics and Good Practice 

  • to discuss any ongoing coaching requirements beyond the contracted  hours   

You as the Coachee undertake to:

  • take personal responsibility for your emotions and behaviours resulting from the coaching process 

  • take personal responsibility for the choices and decisions you make as a result of the coaching process

  • be honest and open and committed to the coaching process

  • keep all appointments unless the coach is advised with at least 48 hours notice.

  • agree to respond in writing to any request from your coach that supports the process

  • provide your coach with your agreed areas of focus be fully enthusiastic, committed and engaged throughout the coaching sessions

  • commit to raising the matter(s) with me if , at any time, you feel that my behaviour or actions are unhelpful/ inappropriate 

We should both agree to :

  • respect each other’s time and other responsibilities and ensure that we do not impose beyond what is reasonable. In particular, we should commit to the agreed time for each coaching session and engage in any reasonable amount of e-mail or telephone contact in between sessions

  • aim to be open and truthful with one another about the coaching relationship itself 

  • share responsibility for the smooth ‘winding down’ of the relationship when its purpose has been achieved and avoid creating dependency 

Pre-Coaching Questionnaire

As a coach, it’s important for me to understand how you view the world in general and yourself in particular. Each person has a unique way of thinking and a unique way of interacting with those around them.

I invite you to answer these questions as clearly and thoughtfully as possible, expressing the best of who you are. These are “pondering” questions designed to stimulate your thinking in a particular way that will make our work together even more productive.

Allow yourself time to respond and come back to the questions, and please send me your answers ideally 48 hours before our session. Please remember, these questions are an invitation to share but only share what you are comfortable with and leave any blank that you wish to.