Many people have different and sometimes conflicting ideas of what coaching is or is not...
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Benefits
of Coaching
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Coaching, on the surface, may have its roots in sports, but has likely been around for centuries. Buddhist and Greek philosophy influenced the coaching practice of today as have many other fields of study and practice including psychology, social work, teaching, counseling, organizational development, and consulting. Performance management developments in the 1960’s and 1970’s influenced the emergence of coaching as a profession. Some of those were Transactional Analysis, EST or Erhard Seminars Training, the Human Potential Movement and Performance Technology, and Gestalt Therapy. By the 1980’s coaching was the buzz word in many organizations and it evolved into a personal growth and performance tool. Initially, business coaches were hired to work with executives and upper management in many of the Fortune 500 companies. Eventually, a need for holistic approaches to reduce stress related symptoms for employees emerged. In the early 1990’s the Coaches Training Institute and the International Coaches Federation were established to train coaches and to ensure the integrity of the practices. Today, coaching is one of the fastest growing professions after Information Technology. There are many, many different kinds of coaches from Life Coach to Personal Fitness Coach, to Soul Coach, the list is growing daily. |
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Coaching is a partnership in which the essential role of the coach is to support individuals in identifying their highest skills, achieving their dreams and accomplishing their goals. Through the coaching process people improve their performance, maintain appropriate low stress levels, and find more passion and energy in their work and home lives. Coaches encourage and expect people to take personal responsibility and be accountable for their own development. This includes establishing a balance between work and home to increase effectiveness in all areas of life. Since goals are often constrained by fears; such as fear of failure, success, or change, people tend to stay in their own comfort zone. A coach will assist the individual to discover, realize or uncover solutions and help the individual overcome his or her self-imposed boundaries. Coaching is personal and intensive and often gets people to move out of their comfort zone. Coaching is reflective rather than directive in approach; it elicits and enables and is flexible. It is also about getting the best out of someone and allowing them to make decisions that will improve their life. Coaches provide a safe and supportive environment in which individuals can express their fears and goals. |
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Psychotherapy. Psychotherapists and counselors work with individuals to uncover past issues, although psychotherapists and counselors can be excellent coaches. Consulting. Consultants provide expertise and expert advice and are project oriented rather than process oriented. Mentoring. Mentoring involves a relationship between a person who is more experienced and a person who is less experienced for the purpose of showing how things are done and sharing advice. |
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The gift of human attention is a scarce resource in the world today. In today’s world we are inundated with information, faced with business downsizing and restructuring, and we are looking at the world as a global community. Our world has become much smaller and more complex and our need to interact with all cultures, races, and businesses has grown exponentially. Our work life balance is skewed and our ability to deal with every day challenges when we are so busy living by calendars, cell phones and computers is mired in what may look like a morass of unsolvable issues. |
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Coaching provides a two way
process involving personal attention and support. Coaches recognize the
turmoil a person may be in and are able to build trust in a way that allows
the person to reduce anxiety, fear, and tension and increase focus and
understanding. Through coaching people learn to hold themselves accountable
and accept personal responsibility. Coaching enables an individual to: grow in integrity, ethics, and emotional maturity improve communication and recognized people, take personal responsibility for their own professional development, enhance their performance, accept and adapt to changes in a manner consistent with personal values and goals as well as aligning with company values and goals. Coaching can help with: improved work relationships, leadership, people management and performance management, motivation, team building and time management, enhanced and improved motivation, morale, and productivity, increased retention of employees and reduced grievances and turnover. Coaching is often linked with organizational change initiatives to help employees accept and adapt to changes within the organization. |
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Coaches need specific core competencies such as excellent listening skills, intuitive questioning ability or the ability to ask the right question at the right time, excellent communication skills or the ability to reframe and communicate feeling and meaning without a personal agenda and the ability to understand the client and the client’s needs. They also need facilitation and supportive skills and they must have the ability to maintain confidentiality. Coaches benefit from having the ability to remain focused on the client’s needs and desired outcomes, the ability to stay out of judgment and influencing, and the ability to build good rapport. They must embrace truth telling, possess high emotional intelligence, be able to refrain from advising and criticizing and have the ability recognize when a person’s needs cannot be met with coaching. |