Revitalizing energy for coaching
If you aren’t seeing results, your energy for coaching will become depleted. Let’s look at how well you are empowering the people you are working with.

Written By Gary Reinecke

ICF Master Certified Coach, Resource Designer, Mission Strategist : InFocus
You had vision to empower others so you were trained in the skills that an empowering leader needs.  After you experienced the excitement of coaching, you developed others to be good listeners, ask powerful questions to help people progress on their discipleship and leadership journey.  You are now a few years in and the initial energy and momentum has died down.  Worse yet, you have a team of coaches that are not as engaged as they once were.  

What happened?

  1. The main thing is not the Main Thing any more.
  2. People have disappointed you and you lost interest.
  3. Reality hit and it is not as easy as you were told it would be.
  4. You lacked the support to keep going.
  5. People you have trained lack the same support you lack.

Your coaching dashboard

coaching dashboard

You have three lights on your coaching dashboard to gauge how well you are empowering others to make more and better disciples, develop leaders, and start new ministries.  The lights flash brightly depending on where you find yourself:

  • Green Light – Your coaching clients are seeing results! Keep empowering people like you have been doing to build on the momentum you have established.
  • Yellow Light – You have been trained to empower others but momentum has died. It is time to assess, refocus, and relaunch the ministries you initially created to empower others.
  • Red Light – You are struggling, the ministry is in decline, and people are showing-up out of obligation.  It’s time to rethink your purpose.

Warning Signals

Here are three early warning signals you need to pay attention to and questions to help you reflect to diagnose the problem:

1. Your coaching skills are rusty.

The busyness of ministry has sucked you dry and the methodology you were equipped in to empower others sits on a shelf in your office.  

Question: What are you doing to develop the coaching skills you were trained in?

2. People are not progressing.

Maybe your leaders are not accomplishing their goals or the people you are working with are not growing in their discipleship or leadership development. 

Question: Why are people stalling-out in their development?

3. You aren’t tracking or celebrating milestones.

You equipped people to be multipliers but unaware how that is really going.

Question: When was the last time you checked-in with the leaders you trained in a methodology to multiply disciples or leaders?

Empowerment Assessment

Reflect on your coaching and your coaching ministry. Are there warning signals? 

How well are you empowering others?

Is the green, yellow, or red light blinking on your coaching dashboard? 

Troubleshooting

If the light on your dashboard is flashing yellow or red, I would suggest a couple of options:

Making the most of your coaching success

If the light on your dashboard is green consider some of these options:

  • Train coach mentors, to equip other leaders in coaching – see GrowthTracks
  • Conduct a SWOT Exercise and assess your coaching system – download Understanding Key Issues at bottom of page. 
  • Plan a coaching summit to show your appreciation, strengthen relationships, and strengthen leaders in the essentials to foster healthy coaching relationships.

Goals & Objectives Skill Builder – Explore the process involved in setting overall strategy or targets to be achieved and then focus on the specific steps needed to set meaningful objectives and work towards your goals.

Goal Setting Storyboard – Storyboards provide a visual “line of sight” through the goal setting process. 

Goal Setting Effectiveness Profile – Profiles seek to measure goal setting effectiveness in seven separate categories.

Cover Photo by Moritz Kindler on Unsplash

Photo by Alex McCarthy on Unsplash

Coaching Through Decision Fatigue

The world is changing at breakneck speed. For many ministry leaders, new innovations are seen as roadblocks to their mission and vision. Constantly navigating around them is exhausting. Here is how you help those leaders keep moving forward.

Drilling down for insight

Giving feedback is a learned skill.  Helping someone grow in this area can be a game changer. But you must slow down and remain present and ask reflective questions.

Is Coaching Still Relevant?

The way ministry is done has changed a lot recently. Your coaching ministry is losing steam. People just aren’t engaging like they used to. Is coaching no longer relevant? Is there another system out there that is more effective?

Building Cultural Awareness for Effective Coaching

If you are working to make your coaching client list more diverse, the best place to start is with a refresher in cultural sensitivity

Coaching for Resourcing 

Fighting a scarcity mindset by helping clients see God’s provision.

A Military Strategy for Coaching Ministries?

Big changes are needed to halt the decline of the Church in America. However, even small changes can be met with heavy resistance. Many pastors have tried to implement healthy changes and admit that it feels almost impossible. Here is a strategy that might help.

The Organized Coach

If you are coaching more than a handful of people, you know it can get hard to track all the moving parts. Here’s how you can keep it all organized.

2 Areas of Your Coaching Business to Consider

You’ve got the basics of your coaching practice in order. You are a trained coach and you have a business plan in motion. But things are moving slower than you hoped. Here are some intangibles and nonessentials that, with some attention, might be just what you need. 

The Prepare—Engage—Act Coaching Cycle

The three-phase cycle that is the foundation for successful coaching sessions.

Building your coaching practice

There is a lot of information swirling about the internet on how to build a coaching practice. Some of it is good and some not so much. What is actually necessary for you and your coaching practice? Here are some misconceptions and 7 essentials for success.