Professional coaching has become increasingly popular in the last few years. In a recent article by Harvard Business Review titled “Leaders Need Professional Coaching Now More Than Ever,” professional coaching is identified to be a critical factor for enabling positive change, cultivating more job and life satisfaction, promoting resilience, and developing clear visions especially in uncertain times2. Despite the increased popularity, many still do not understand how professional coaching works. In this article, I will be explaining what coaching is in a simple fashion.
Coaching is conversation where an active collaborative participation of both the coach and client takes place1. There is a wildly accepted misconception that coaching is all about problem solving, although problems will be solved, coaching is really about awareness and choices. A coach views the client as whole, resourceful, and equal in a coaching relationship. Neither the coach nor the client holds the power in this relationship. The coach believes that the client is the expert is his or her life. This is why a coach does not provide advice nor recommendation like a mentor or a consultant normally would. A coach is trained with very specific skills and while an interest in the same field helps, the coach’s knowledge in the field of the coaching client does not impact how effective the coaching is.
The coach helps the coaching client see, many times for the first time, what types of self-limiting beliefs and inner critical thoughts are holding the coaching client back from a specific goal or simply more balance and fulfilment in life. The main role of the coach is to help the client self-discover through the application of specific skills including powerful questions, active reflective listening, championing, and challenging. A professional coach holds a space for the client that is free from judgement and helps the client to find the answers from within, get insights on how a negative self-belief or a certain repressed emotion has caused the client to feel stuck or confused for a long time. Seeing from within is how the learning really sticks versus receiving an advice from someone else. Naturally, when we have insights and we become more aware of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, we start making different choices and this is the action piece of coaching. Awareness is the prerequisite for transformation but the transformation will only occur when the client takes action. A simple analogy is imagining that the coach is a personal fitness coach and the client is the trainee. The personal trainer can help the trainee develop a fitness program but without the trainee doing the work, no physical transformation happens.
Here are some examples of how coaching has helped my own clients. The excerpts have been cut directly out of real client feedback while keeping the names anonymous for confidentiality.
- Client A said “My coaching sessions […] have been remarkably helpful for me in clearly identifying my career passions and in formulating a plan to increase my professional impact. I feel confident in my clarified self-awareness and in my plan to maximize my career impact because I feel the answers came from within myself. […] was a guide to help me ponder my emotions with regards to my professional goals while realizing specific actionable items that I could take to progress my career.”
- Client B said “My coach helped me gain insight into my values and priorities both in and out of work. […] She helped me see some work issues from different perspectives that I hadn’t considered.”
Now what? After understanding what coaching does, you might now be wondering about the logistics. Typically, the coach and client will have an introductory meeting to get to know each other better and discuss possible logistics. Many coaching engagements happen on a biweekly basis and each session lasts about an hour, more or less. There are no hard rules when it comes to session frequency and what type of communication occurs in between session. It all depends on what agreement the coach and client come up with. Curious to learn more? Book a Discovery Session with me today.
References
- Kimsey-House, Sandhal, and Whitworth, H. (2011). Co-active Coaching. Nicholas Brealey.
- Leaders Need Professional Coaching Now More Than Ever – sponsor content from the International Coaching Federation. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https//hbr.org/sponsored/2021/03/leaders-needprofessionalcoachingnowmore-than-ever.
