WHAT IS PROFESSIONAL COACHING?
Professional Coaching is about me showing up with YOU, in a safe, compassionate, challenging and confidential space, where I show up present, mindful, and authentic. I work with you to create a mindful energy field where in partnership, we both deeply listen to a solution and practice finding ideas that can transform us! We let go to let in, and that has been my gift of adversity, learning to surrender, trusting the process and paying attention to our natural leadership gifts. I am honoured to share this journey with you! When you show up with this much trust and presence, simple solutions to our complex leadership issues from small business to organizational leadership EMERGE STRONG,
Naturally!
Yes, we strategize Return on Investment and Return on Expectations yet, after a decade of coaching, I've witnessed that having strengthened stamina and resilience allows you show up present with courage, confidence, and conviction, speaking up for what you believe in. The results: You create what you want, and have impact and influence! The bottom line is achieved naturally!
What distinguishes coaching from other leadership support?
The ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential, which is particularly important in today’s uncertain and complex environment. Coaches honor the client as the expert in his or her life and work and believe every client is creative, resourceful, and whole. Standing on this foundation, the coach’s responsibility is to:
- Discover, clarify, and align with what you want to achieve
- Encourage your self-discovery
- Elicit your generated solutions and strategies
- Hold you responsible, accountable, and capable
This process helps you dramatically improve your outlook on work and life, while improving your leadership skills and unlocking your potential.
HOW CAN YOU DETERMINE IF COACHING IS RIGHT FOR YOU OR YOUR ORGANIZATION?
Research from Human Capital Institute HCI and ICF International Coaching Federation highlight the positive impact that coaching interactions, when strategically designed and implemented, can have on an organization and individual:
- Hard financial benefits (e.g., increased productivity and quality).
- Intangible benefits (e.g., improved relationships, teamwork and job satisfaction).
- Soft benefits (e.g., decreased stress and increased resilience/well-being and engagement).
- Behavior change (e.g., better time management, faster onboarding, and better decision making).
In addition, recent research from Human Capital Institute (HCI) and the International Coaching Federation (ICF), found that strong coaching cultures correlate with higher employee engagement and better financial performance. Coaching can be used to develop a specific skill set and improve performance.
HOW IS COACHING DISTINCT FROM OTHER SERVICE PROFESSIONS?
Professional coaching focuses on setting goals, creating outcomes, and managing personal change. Sometimes it’s helpful to understand coaching by distinguishing it from other personal or organizational support professions.
Therapy: Therapy deals with healing pain, dysfunction, and conflict within an individual or in relationships. The focus is often on resolving difficulties arising from the past that hamper an individual’s emotional functioning in the present, improving overall psychological functioning, and dealing with the present in more emotionally healthy ways. Coaching, on the other hand, supports personal and professional growth based on self-initiated change in pursuit of specific actionable outcomes. These outcomes are linked to personal or professional success. Coaching is future focused. While positive feelings/emotions may be a natural outcome of coaching, the primary focus is on creating actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in one’s work or personal life. The emphases in a coaching relationship are on action, accountability, and follow-through.
Consulting: Individuals or organizations retain consultants for their expertise. While consulting approaches vary widely, the assumption is the consultant will diagnose problems, prescribe, and, sometimes, implement solutions. With coaching, the assumption is that individuals or teams are capable of generating their own solutions, with the coach supplying supportive, discovery-based approaches and frameworks.
Mentoring: A mentor is an expert who provides wisdom and guidance based on his or her own experience. Mentoring may include advising, counseling, and coaching. The coaching process does not include advising or counseling and focuses instead on individuals or groups being able to reach their own objectives.
Training: Training programs are based on objectives set out by the trainer or instructor. Though objectives are clarified in the coaching process, they are set by the individual or team being coached, with guidance provided by the coach. Training also assumes a linear learning path that coincides with an established curriculum. Coaching is less linear, without a set curriculum.
Athletic Development: Though sports metaphors are often used, professional coaching is different from sports coaching. The athletic coach is often seen as an expert who guides and directs the behavior of individuals or teams based on his or her greater experience and knowledge. Professional coaches possess these qualities, but their experience and knowledge of the individual or team determine the direction. Additionally, professional coaching, unlike athletic development, does not focus on behaviors that are being executed poorly or incorrectly. Instead, the focus is on identifying opportunity for development based on individual strengths and capabilities.
THE RESEARCH OF GOLEMAN AND BOYATZIS SHOWS THAT THE KEY INDICATOR OF FAILURE FOR YOUNG EXECUTIVES-EMERGING LEADERS-IS THEIR INABILITY TO DEVELOP EMPATHY.
- The research of the Gartner group shows that the key factor in retaining high-quality employees is having a favorable relationship with their supervisor where they experience the opportunity of being treated like an adult and given the chance to grow and develop.
- The research of Metrix Global shows that coaching generated improvements in retention, cost savings, productivity, work output, and sales. 69% of improvements were attributed to coaching.
- From a study of 100 executives from Fortune 1000 companies conducted by the Manchester Group: