Initial Pre Coaching Questionnaire

A pre coaching questionnaire is something that you can ask your coachee to complete or use as a basis of an initial conversation, and can serve the purpose of finding out about the coachee (ie gaining information for your benefit as coach) and also to start the reflective process within the coachee (for their benefit as coachee). 

Solo Build It!

More specifically you may use it to…

  • find out information from your coachee about them, their goals, values, fears, strengths, resources, aspirations
  • understand more specifically what they are looking for from the coaching process
  • understand what they want from you as their coach
  • raise your client’s own awareness about all of the above

Typically I would issue this questionnaire once I had established whether someone was right for coaching and what they wanted from the process so would be issued after the pre-coaching conversation. Therefore the questions I pose tend to be more about raising awareness and stimulating thinking in my client rather than fact finding on my behalf and it typically forms the basis of the first session.

The advantage of issuing it as a questionnaire for your coachee to complete before you start the coaching process is that it gives time for your coachee to think about their answers and perhaps give more comprehensive responses. It also means that you are in effect accelerating the coaching process if your potential coachee has been given the opportunity to stimulate their thinking before they start.

The down side however is that a coachee, particularly with sensitive issues may choose not to reveal all on their questionnaire so you could get a slightly inaccurate picture of them. For example they may state their goals, but on further probing there is an underlying issue that they may need to address. If you do issue it as a questionnaire for them to complete and return to you don’t take it as face value and always explore their responses.


How much should you put on a pre-course questionnaire?

I have seen (and completed) some very lengthy questionnaires and sometimes am left wondering what purpose it serves and for whose benefit. Personally when I use one I ask just a few (between 5 and 10) questions to help get my client thinking and I reserve the rest of the questions for the coaching session itself. I always find that I tend to adapt my questions depending on my client and what we have already discussed in their pre-coaching conversation - I see no point in repeating questions we already have the answers to.

For some ideas on the questions you might use see sample pre-coaching questionnaire.

See Also:-

Sample Pre Coaching Questionnaire
 Pre Coaching Conversation
 Coaching Programme Design
 First Coaching Session
 Intake Session Checklist
 Reasons To End A Coaching Relationship
 Ending The Coaching Relationship
 Post Coaching Relationship

Enjoy this page? Please pay it forward. Here's how...

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

  1. Click on the HTML link code below.
  2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.

Return to Home Page from Initial Pre Coaching Questionnaire