On your journey to becoming a reputable business coach, your knowledge and expertise are the keys to your success. There are many avenues for refining your skills, but one overlooked resource is the library of business coaching books. These books act as on-demand mentors, refining years of expertise, research, and practical experience into easily accessible knowledge.
From personal development to coaching methodologies, business coaching books expose new and veteran business coaches to new ways of thinking. The result — coaches who provide unmatched value to their clients.
The Power of Business Coaching Books
Business coaching books are valuable resources for coaches who aim to sharpen their skills, expand their knowledge, and elevate their practice. Coaching books are like your on-call mentors because they encapsulate years of information you can tap into at your convenience.
Here are three reasons why you should be reading books for business coaches.
1. Expanded quality of your coaching services
These books offer theoretical frameworks that deepen your understanding of human behavior, motivation, and decision-making. They provide research-backed methodologies to integrate into your coaching practice to enhance your ability to guide clients through various challenges.
2. Access to the coaching resources and advice you need
Business coaching books often include actionable advice, exercises, and templates to immediately apply in your coaching sessions. Whether it’s a set of thought-provoking questions to engage your clients or a blueprint for building a successful coaching business, these books serve as practical toolkits. They will save you time and effort by providing tried-and-true approaches that would take years to develop on your own.
3. Increased commitment to continuous learning
In the coaching profession, the landscape requires you to stay current on what’s new. Business coaching books help keep you in the loop on the latest trends, ethical considerations, and technological advancements that could impact your practice.
So, if you’re serious about being an effective, well-rounded, and successful business coach, investing in a solid library of business coaching books is highly recommended.
7 Best Business Coaching Books to Improve Your Coaching Practice
1. Co-Active Coaching by Henry Kimsey-House, Karen Kimsey-House, and Phillip Sandahl
In the coaching world, we often get caught up in problem-solving or skill-building. While those are crucial, Co-Active Coaching reminds us that we deal with complex individuals who bring their whole selves into every situation.
Now, this whole-person approach may sound abstract, but the authors make it tangible. They lay down skill development techniques rooted in understanding and valuing all aspects of a client’s life. These tools and techniques will radically transform your coaching practice because you’re not just hitting surface-level issues but also tapping into the client’s core values and beliefs.
2. Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
Profit First by Mike Michalowicz is a game-changer for business coaches. The book’s core premise flips traditional business accounting on its head by advocating that you take your profit out before covering expenses.
As a business coach, your primary role is to guide entrepreneurs or business leaders to financial success. Implementing the Profit First system in your practice sets you on a course for financial stability and provides a tangible model of success you can share with your clients.
Your own ability to show that you’ve implemented a profitable model gives you added credibility when advising others.
3. The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier
How do you turn good intentions into rock-solid habits?
This book serves as a practical guide for integrating effective coaching methods into your everyday interactions, turning the act of coaching from an occasional event into a daily habit. The book argues that building a coaching habit will make you a better leader and elevate your impact on your clients’ lives.
One of the book’s most powerful tools is its focus on questions — specifically, asking the right questions to steer clients toward their own insights and solutions. This feature of the book is invaluable for coaches, as it equips you with the skills to facilitate more engaging and solution-oriented conversations.
The Coaching Habit also provides usable, real-world frameworks that are adaptable and scalable. This practicality is golden for business coaches, especially those striving to make every client interaction as productive as possible.
4. Never Die Easy by Walter Payton
Never Die Easy is an autobiography of Walter Payton, one of the greatest running backs in the history of American football. While the book primarily focuses on Payton’s life and experiences in the sports arena, business coaches can find many valuable lessons within its pages.
The book covers how Payton, even in the face of adversity in his personal and professional life, showed a relentless work ethic and determination to reach his goal. Business coaches can use their experiences to instill a similar mindset in their clients by emphasizing the value of hard work, dedication, and resilience in achieving business goals.
Additionally, Walter Payton was known for his leadership skills and ability to inspire his teammates. Understanding how a person of his caliber thought and acted can give business coaches valuable insights into leadership and team dynamics.
5. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
Drive explores the psychology of motivation, which is at the heart of any coaching relationship. Pink’s focus on autonomy, mastery, and purpose offers coaches a framework to better understand what drives individual and organizational performance.
Coaches should use this knowledge to help clients create more effective reward systems beyond monetary incentives to foster a culture of intrinsic motivation. The mastery insights help coaches develop training programs emphasizing long-term growth over quick fixes. It also teaches coaches how to guide their clients in aligning company objectives with a greater purpose to increase employee engagement and productivity.
6. Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
Brené brings her A-game when discussing leadership skills for any coach. Dare to Lead offers actionable insights into emotional intelligence, courage, and leadership.
The book shifts the narrative by championing vulnerability as a leadership strength, a valuable lesson for coaches working with reluctant leaders.
Brown provides tools for building courage and resilience within teams, giving coaches the framework to create more effective work environments.
With an emphasis on values-based leadership and emotional literacy, this book equips coaches to guide their clients in making decisions that align with their values.
7. Coaching for Performance by Sir John Whitmore
Coaching for Performance is the physical form of the GROW model (Goals, Reality, Options, Will), a widely-used coaching framework that adds structure and effectiveness to coaching sessions.
The book encourages the coach’s transition from an expert to a facilitator. It advocates asking insightful questions to empower clients to find their own solutions.
Additionally, the book covers performance improvement strategies that are valuable for business coaches aiming to help clients boost productivity and job satisfaction.
Invest in Your Coaching Practice
Business coaching books are a low-cost, low-risk investment in your own success and your clients’ success. The insights gained from these books make you a more effective and versatile business coach which makes you more valuable to your clients.
Take the time to arm yourself with the collective wisdom that experts have taken time to craft; your future self will thank you.
