Effective Communication in Coaching - Essay Example

 Communication in psychological coaching is not limited to certain aspects; instead it is a diverse field involving formal aspects of verbal behavior. Coaching does not require a hard and fast rule to be followed while communicating with clients; it is all a matter of how a coach understands the nature and psychological problems associated with the client. In this context the councilor deals with the client according to his mood and scenario, however there are some golden rules to be followed mostly while communication, which we would discuss next. Effective Communication in psychological coaching requires efficient use of psychological science by the coach to control mental attitude of the clients in order to get into their behavioral events. Effective coaching requires that people psyche can be best dealt by adopting a warm and friendly attitude, without giving the clients a feeling that they are being controlled by the psychologists or something like brainwashing is never appreciated by them. So a councilor must possess a friendly and “open to suggestion” attitude with his clients, in which he is open to the comments and objections. The psychology of coaching adopts two perspectives in order to conduct a successful communication session, the study of linguistic communication from the point of view of structural linguistics and communicating clients keeping in view associative learning. Whatever be the case, the impact of communication should be positive on the client. Its effectiveness is determined from the fact as to what extent the client has started relying upon the councilor. The outcome of an effectual communication is the trust of the client gained by the coach, due to which the client agrees to conduct further psychological sessions. Psychological coaching where on one hand counts on “attitude”, on the other its effectiveness depends upon the semantic problems concerned with the meaning of verbal utterances. Verbal behavior counts a lot that means it includes proper and effective usage of linguistics. For this purpose recent development in linguistics involves the increasing availability of high-speed computer techniques for language analysis. Many questions dealing with problems of sentence formation, syntactic style, and other measurable aspects of verbal utterances make an impression upon client. Communication if view from a different angle produces different results. Like, if psychological contribution were not involved in communication, it would be just like two robots talking to each other, deprive of all the feelings and emotions. Similarly what if gestures not include in communication. Psychological system of communication combining gestures, facial expressions, and sounds into a composite signal in which the significance of one type of signal or a particular gesture, is dependent on what particular facial expressions and sounds accompany it. The full significance of a signal may, in addition, be determined by the relative social positions of the participants in the communication act. (Miller, 1973, p. 256) Psychological coaching also involves an effective utilization of “persuasion” while communicating, which refers that a coach must possess the capability to influence the client through his attitude and words. Again, if the coach is well versed with the correct usage of linguistics only then he is able to influence the client. Communication persuasion points out six steps to be followed by a person that wish to be persuaded to take some new attitude or action. He must first of all have the persuasive communication presented to him. That means coach attitude towards him is so influential that the client is bound to trust him. Second, if any task is assigned to the client, it is necessary that he attend to fulfill that task, without any pressure from the coach. And, given that he attends to it, he must possess a thorough understanding of what is being argued; he must at least comprehend the conclusion being urged even if he does not comprehend the arguments being offered in its support. (Miller, 1973, p. 243) Fourth, besides comprehending the position being urged, the recipient must yield to it in a sense that he must adopt a new position, at least on the verbal level, instead of sticking to the same old topic. Moreover, the fifth step; the most important part of effective communication is its after effects retained on the mind of the client, this yielding be retained until some subsequent time at which the effect is to be measured. It should not be in that way that after attending psychological coaching session, the communication is eliminated from the mind of the client. If so, this would be the most ineffective communication. A sixth and final step is required if we are interested in effects that go beyond the strictly verbal level, in that the person must not only retain the new attitude but must also act on it. Now it depends upon the coach as to how much he develops his skills in order to make communication effective and work till the last moment. Persuasion or influence where on one hand is the problem of communicating information; on the other hand, it is a problem of overcoming resistance to yielding. Because of its emphasis on attention and understanding, this approach has been called the information processing theory of influential communication, which has dual reflections of the same mirror. The effectiveness of this influential mode requires effective skills of the coach to determine first the category of the client to which he is communicating. This makes things easier for the coach to handle. If the client is in the mode of being influenced, effective verbal behaviour will make him attend the coaching session successfully. Otherwise, those in non-influential mode are difficult to grasp the session. The role of ‘fear arousal’ often works in most of the situations in which the coach through his effective communication skills makes the client conscious enough towards his problem, this consciousness arises fear in the client due to which he is willing to attend the session or therapy. Such attitude works best in conditions where the client is irresponsible towards his session or the problem to which he is confronting to be of little concern to him as the greater the fear arousal the more motivated the person should be to accept the recommendation and to get the preventive immunization. However, this approach is not effective in all cases and does not work in situations where the client is already in severe distress and requires urgent therapy. So, effective communication in psychological coaching is a skill that cannot be learned. Instead it is a skill that can be adopted keeping in view the various clients’ nature and attitudes. It is the onus on the part of the coach to develop his skills, detects the client mood immediately so as to act accordingly. Works Cited & References Miller A. George, (1973) “Communication, Language, and Meaning: Psychological Perspectives”: Basic Books: New York. Niehoff P. Brian & Paul J. Robert, (2001) “The Just Workplace: Developing and Maintaining Effective Psychological Contracts” In Review of Business. Volume: 22. Issue: 1. Read More