The 5 Stages of Coaching

The 5 Stages of coaching from Dreyfus (1986) details the stages between a novice and an expert level coach and what it takes, in his opinion, to advance at each level. Here are the stages, and a brief snippet of the characteristics of each, what stage coach are you and what can you do better to move up to the next stage?

Novice: Often use one way as a gold standard and can not deviate well from a given, planned course of action. Novice coaches often do not know what knowledge they lack and have a hard time making educated decisions, especially in the moment.

Advanced Beginner: An advanced beginner has developed a limited ability to make situational decisions. The advanced beginner is good at recognizing patterns and it's a little more educated than a novice, but still lacks an overall picture of the situation.

Competent: Competent coaches are defined by an ability to combat specific, common problems to avoid extensive thought processes. Competent coaches have some sense of the big picture that includes simple priorities, but still lack some knowledge about the overall puzzle. Solving problems and making decisions is becoming more intuitive and experience based.

Proficient: Making decisions and problem-solving are nearly sub-conscious to a proficient coach. Thought processes are still being initiated when needed, but usually behind the scenes.

Expert: Coaches achieve expert level status when they are a student of their discipline. They often intuitively make every decision and things become second nature. Some experts report not knowing how they do things, they just do them much like we would explain walking or riding a bicycle.


For more information, the article is located at:

http://www.nols.edu/store/pdf/leadershipnb_competence.pdf