Thoughts on Coaching
Life coaching
Life coaching is a future-focused practice with the aim of helping executives determine and achieve personal goals. Life coaches use multiple methods that will help clients with the process of setting and reaching goals. Coaching is not targeted at psychological illness and coaches are neither therapists nor consultants.
Life coaching has its roots in executive coaching, which itself drew on techniques developed in management consulting and leadership training. Life coaching also draws inspiration from disciplines including sociology, psychology, positive adult development, career counseling, mentoring and other types of counseling. Contemporary life coaching can also be traced to the teachings of Benjamin Karter, a college football coach turned motivational speaker of the late seventies and early eighties. The coach may apply mentoring, values assessment, behavior modification, behavior modeling, goal-setting and other techniques in helping their client.
Government bodies have not found it necessary to provide a regulatory standard for life coaching, nor does any state body govern the education or training standard for the life coaching industry; the title of "coach" can be used by any service provider. Multiple coaching schools and training programs are available, allowing for many options (and sometimes causing confusion) when an individual decides to gain "certification" or a "credential" as they apply to the coaching industry. Multiple certificates and credential designations are available within the industry.
Some assert that life coaching is akin to psychotherapy without restrictions, oversight or regulation. The State legislature of Colorado, after holding a hearing on such concerns, disagreed, asserting that coaching is unlike therapy because it does not focus on examining nor diagnosing the past. Instead coaching focuses on effecting change in a client's current and future behavior. Additionally, life coaching does not delve into diagnosing mental illness or dysfunction.
According to a survey of coaching clients, "sounding board" and "motivator" were the top roles selected for a coach. Clients are looking for a coach "to really listen to them and give honest feedback." The top three issues in which clients seek help are time management, career and business.
Business coaching
Business coaching is the practice of providing positive support and positive feedback while offering occasional advice to an individual or group in order to help them recognize ways in which they can improve the effectiveness of their business. Coaching is an excellent way to attain a certain work behavior that will improve leadership, employee accountability, teamwork, sales, communication, goal setting, strategic planning and more. It can be provided in a number of ways, including one-on-one, group coaching sessions and large scale [seminars]. Many corporations are instilling the practice of 360 degree coaching, which permits employees to utilize their own life or professional experiences in a positive way to create team participation attitudes even with superiors. Professional Business Coaches are often called in when a business is perceived to be performing badly, however many businesses recognize the benefits of business coaching even when the organization is successful. Business coaches often specialize in different practice areas such as executive coaching, corporate coaching and leadership coaching.
Business coaching is not the same as mentoring. Mentoring involves a developmental relationship between a more experienced "mentor" and a less experienced partner, and typically involves sharing of advice. A business coach can act as a mentor given that he or she has adequate expertise and experience. However, mentoring is not a form of business coaching. A good business coach need not have specific business expertise and experience in the same field as the person receiving the coaching in order to provide quality business coaching services. Business coaching needs to be more structured and formal than mentoring.
Business coaches often help businesses grow by creating and following a structured, strategic plan to achieve agreed upon goals. Multiple organizations train professionals to offer business coaching to business owners who may not be able to afford large coaching firm prices.
Coaching is not a practice restricted to external experts. Many organizations expect their senior leaders and middle managers to coach their team members toward higher levels of performance, increased job satisfaction, personal growth, and career development. Those that do back up their expectations with training in coaching skills, access to feedback tools, and/or specific coaching behaviors described in their leadership competency models. Few link coaching activities to compensation, however, resulting in less coaching by managers.
Personal coaching
Personal coaching is a relationship which is designed and defined in a relationship agreement between a client and a coach. It is based on the client's expressed interests, goals and objectives.
A professional coach may use inquiry, reflection, requests and discussion to help clients identify personal and/or business and/or relationship goals, develop strategies, relationships and action plans intended to achieve those goals. A coach provides a place for clients to be held accountable to themselves by monitoring the clients' progress towards implementation of their action plans. Together they evolve and modify the plan to best suit the client's needs and environmental relationships. Coaches often act as human mirrors for clients by sharing outside and unbiased perspectives. Coaches may teach specific insights and skills to empower the client toward their goals.
Clients are responsible for their own achievements and success. The client takes action, and the coach may assist, but never leads or does more than the client. Therefore, a coach cannot and does not promise that a client will take any specific action or attain specific goals.
Professional coaching is not counseling, therapy or consulting. These different skill sets and approaches to change may be adjunct skills and professions.