What is Coaching Anyway?
Posted by Sue - Admin on Jul. 16, 2021 / Competencies, Leadership / Subscribe 0
What exactly is coaching anyway? There are many definitions available; however, the one I like most is from the book Coaching for Performance, by John Whitmore. In this book, Whitmore describes how Timothy Gallwey, author of The Inner Game series of books, correctly defined coaching as follows:
…Gallwey had put his finger on the essence of coaching. Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them. (Whitmore, 2002, p. 8)
ICF defines coaching as:
...partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. The process of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity and leadership.
Professional coaches (qualified and accredited) work with their clients in all areas of their lives. They build an on-going relationship using effective coaching skills to produce fulfilling results in all areas of the client’s life in which the client wishes to make improvements.
Imagine if average professionals leveraged a personal coach or someone who could help them continuously hone their skills. Just like the personal coaches for athletes do, in the same vein, a good coach can:
- Help individuals continue to improve their craft.
- Provide unbiased feedback on the individual’s performance.
- Provide tools and techniques to overcome obstacles when the coach is not around.
- Provide motivation when it is needed most.
There are many genres of personal coaches available such as executive, life, and career development coaches. Each coaches has the same primary aim, to assist individuals with getting the most out of their careers.
About the Profession:
ICF estimates there are 71,000 professional coaches worldwide and 23,000 based in North America. And the profession is growing. Between 2015 and 2019, the number of professional coaches worldwide increased by 33% globally and 33% in North America, based on ICF's 2020 Global Coaching Study Final Report.
As the estimated market size is expected to reach $20 billion USD by 2022, the coaching industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world. ... In fact, it is predicted that specialized expertise will play an increasingly prominent role in the success of coaching in the coming years.
What are some typical reasons someone might work with a coach?
An individual or team might choose to work with a coach for many reasons, including but not limited to the following:
- Something urgent, compelling or exciting is at stake (a challenge, stretch goal or opportunity).
- A gap exists in knowledge, skills, confidence or resources.
- A desire to accelerate results.
- A lack of clarity with choices to be made.
- Success has started to become problematic.
- Work and life are out of balance, creating unwanted consequences.
- Core strengths need to be identified, along with how best to leverage them.
The Coaching Process
Coaching is a process. It has a beginning, a middle and an end.
It all begins with a conversation. From that conversation an engagement can materialize. Either being hired by an individual or an organization, the beginning of any engagement offers a clarification of the process – what are the expectations of the relationship, of the engagement, of the agreement. A document or contract is the outcome.
The length of a coaching partnership varies depending on the individual’s or team’s needs and preferences. For certain types of focused coaching, three to six months of working may work. For other types of coaching, people may find it beneficial to work with a coach for a longer period. Factors that may impact the length of time include: the types of goals, the ways individuals or teams prefer to work, the frequency of coaching meetings, and financial resources available to support coaching.
Each conversation is unique. Each conversation has a goal and a measure of success. Within each conversation the Coach holds the space for discovery to occur.
Individual or Team coaching, it does not matter. The Entire Process is key to success in building relationships that work and that build the coaching practice.
The ending of the coaching engagement does not mean the end of the relationship. It does give an opportunity for assessment and reflection on all sides. How did we do? How can we be better? What is next?
How does the Coach hold the space for discovery?
Since each Coaching engagement is different by nature of the goals presented, the time span of the engagement and the time span of each conversation, we can look to the skills in a coach's tool box to answer this question.
A coach must be able to:
- Provide objective assessment and observations that foster the individual’s or team’s self-awareness and awareness of others.
- Listen closely to fully understand the individual’s or team’s circumstances.
- Act as a sounding board in exploring possibilities and implementing thoughtful planning and decision making.
- Champion opportunities and potential, encouraging stretch and challenge commensurate with personal strengths and aspirations.
- Foster shifts in thinking that reveal fresh perspectives.
- Challenge blind spots to illuminate new possibilities and support the creation of alternative scenarios.
- Maintain professional boundaries in the coaching relationship, including confidentiality, and adheres to the coaching profession’s code of ethics.
What does coaching ask of an individual?
To be successful, coaching asks certain things, all of which begin with intention. What do you want? This might be an achievement, a relationship or new venture. It might be accountability, confidence or development. For the individual, it is important to know that the process works if you:
- Focus on one’s self. Are willing to answer the tough questions, and look at the hard truths and one’s success.
- Be open to self-awareness and being able to observe the behaviors and communications of others.Listen to one’s intuition, assumptions, judgments, and to the way one sounds when one speaks.
- Challenge existing attitudes, beliefs and behaviors and develop new ones that serve one’s goals in a superior way.
- Leverage personal strengths and overcome limitations to develop a winning style.
- Take decisive actions, however uncomfortable and in spite of personal insecurities, to reach for the extraordinary.
- Show compassion for one’s self while learning new behaviors and experiencing setbacks, and to show that compassion for others as they do the same.
- Commit to not take one’s self so seriously, using humor to lighten and brighten any situation.
- Maintain composure in the face of disappointment and unmet expectations, avoiding emotional reactivity.
- Have the courage to reach for more than before while engaging in continual self-examination without fear.
- Take the tools, concepts, models and principles provided by the coach and the thoughts generated by the questions asked and engage in effective forward actions.
Coaching and You: Perfect Together?
When I think of why I became and continue to be a coach, I see my role as helping people figure out how to navigate their challenges and create the life and or the part of their life in focus at the time, be all they want it to be.
I help people unlock their potential. I help people be their own catalyst for their own change because they own it. I see the shifts in their thinking, their being and their outcomes.
Why are you part of this profession? What can we do to help keep you engaged and energized by our profession?
Let us know. Get involved.
Let us know how we can support your coaching journey. Contact me at [email protected].
Kathleen Cashman-Walter
www.linkedin.com/in/kathleencashman
ICF NJ Director of Membership 2021-22
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