Trusted Coaching

Our guest today is Reinhard Stelter, Professor of Sport- and Coaching Psychology at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He advocates a new form of coaching as a transformational dialogue, one that fosters trust between the coach and the dialogue partner by a more relational “attunement” or resonating with the coaching partner. He refers to the need for what the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa called “Resonance”, to show that in times of ever-growing acceleration in technology, private interactions, and social processes, resonance might be the solution. He advocates that in the process of resonating with another person, we can develop trust and growth in relationships and understanding.

He talks about his move from performance-oriented sports psychology towards developing coaching as a transformational dialogue where trust is the foundational premise. The focus is on developmental issues, where clients or dialogue partners struggle with themselves or specific challenges they are faced with. The perspective of “dialogue coaching” can be described as fellow-human companionship: dialogue guides – a professional coach or colleague or a friend – support their dialogue partner by including themselves in the dialogue as a collaborative and co-reflecting partner.