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XSonia Gill E-mail: soniagill_@hotmail.com Info: Sonia is the founder of Heads Up, an education consultancy which combines her years in education and senior business leadership to develop leadership skills and high performing teams in schools. As a psychology graduate Sonia has always had a keen interest and passion in developing people, this led to her to coaching which further compliments her consultancy work.Posts by the author (6)

Rapport – that key to seamless interactions

You don’t want to stand to near to me these days, I’m really focusing on my rapport building.  I think I’m pretty good at it but no harm in getting better at it.  Besides I’m a fan of getting better at what you’re already good at.  I’m working on it because I realise the difference it makes in our interactions, coaching and otherwise.

I used to be a classroom teacher and when I left my first school a colleague I worked with was sad to see me leave because I had ‘it’.  What was ‘it’?  She tried to explain as best she could, ‘it’ was what made me a good teacher because ‘it’ let me get the children in my class on board.  Many years later I realised ‘it’ was rapport.

Peggy Guglielmino once told me how a friend of hers would sit on the tube and get into rapport with people until he could start leading them, which he would do successfully.  Ok, I’m not that good!  But that’s what I like about coaching; you can pick any one thing and work on it in your everyday interactions, see what happens and get better at it.  And believe I’m building rapport in just about every situation, when I’m sitting, talking, walking, on the tube, in the pub, on the phone – oh yes, it’s physical and verbal rapport.  And once I’ve got rapport I’m working on leading.  You have been warned!

Filed Under Transformational Coaching