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What is Coaching

How is Coaching Used?

There is also an increasing trend for individuals to take greater responsibility for their personal and professional development, and even those who are employed in large organisations are no longer relying on employers to provide them with all or their career development needs. There has been an increase in the number of individuals contracting coaches and mentors on a private basis. Some are looking for a career change, but many are also seeking to maximise their potential with an existing employer or achieve greater balance with their work and home lives.

Many Coaching clients will seek coaching or mentoring for performance enhancement rather than the rectification of a performance issue. Coaching & mentoring have been shown to be highly successful intervention in these cases. When an organisation is paying premium rates for development services, performance is usually the key pay-back they are looking for. Even if an executive or manager receives support in balancing work and home life, it will be with the aim of increasing their effectiveness and productivity at work and not for more altruistic reasons.

Coaches offer their clients a supportive and motivating environment to explore what they want in life and how they might achieve their aspirations and fulfil their needs. By assisting the client in committing to action and by being a sounding-board to their experiences, coaching allows the individual the personal space and support they need to grow and develop. The coach's key role is often is assisting the client to maintain the motivation and commitment needed to achieve their goals.

In many cases personal coaching is differentiated from business coaching purely by the context and the focus of the programme. Business coaching is always conducted within the constraints placed on the individual or group by the organisational context. Personal coaching on the other hand is taken entirely from the individual's perspective.

Is coaching just therapy by another name?

Coaching is not ‘therapy’ by another name although the key theoretical underpinnings, models and techniques found their origins in the field of psychology and associated therapies like gestalt & cognitive behavioural therapy which have broad ranging applications in both organisational and personal contexts.

The key difference between coaching and the therapies is that coaching does not seek to resolve the deeper underlying issues that are the cause of serious problems like poor motivation, low self-esteem and poor job performance. Coaching programmes are generally more concerned with the practical issues of setting goals and achieving results within specific time-scales.

Coaching is generally commenced on the premise that clients are self-aware and ‘whole’ and have selected coaching because they do not require a therapeutic intervention. It is possible for someone who has underlying issues to experience success within a coaching context even if the underlying issues are not resolved. If, however, a client becomes ‘stuck’ and the coaching or mentoring programme is not achieving desired results, then a psychological or therapeutic intervention may be necessary for the client to move forward and achieve their goals.

Coaching programmes which are typically quite short, are not aimed at qualifying coaches to conduct an assessment of whether someone may be in need of a therapeutic intervention, rather than a coaching one. This is driven in part by the professional restrictions and barriers that have been placed around psychology and the therapies, but is mostly due to the fact that psychological assessment is a complex process that requires specialised training. Professional coaches do, however, stay ever alert to the possibility that a client may have or may develop issues or problems for which coaching on its own, is not sufficient.

Most coaches prefer to maintain the professional boundaries between coaching and the traditional therapies and will collaborate with therapists when a client requires this form of intervention.

What is the Role of the Coach?

The Coach will:

• Observe, listen and ask questions to understand the client's situation

• Support the client in setting appropriate goals and methods of assessing progress in relation to these goals

• Facilitate the exploration of needs, motivations, desires, skills and thought processes to assist the individual in making real, lasting change

• Encourage a commitment to action and the development of lasting personal growth and change

• Use questioning techniques to facilitate the client's own thought processes in order to identify solutions and actions, rather than take a wholly directive approach

• Maintain unconditional positive regard for the client, which means that the coach is at all times supportive and non-judgmental of the client, their views, lifestyle and aspirations

• Evaluate the outcomes of the process, using objective measures wherever possible to ensure the relationship is successful and the client is achieving their personal goals

• Encourage clients to continually improve competencies and to develop new developmental alliances where necessary to achieve their goals

• Manage the relationship to ensure the client receives the appropriate level of service and that programmes are neither too short, nor too long

• Ensure that clients develop personal competencies and do not develop unhealthy dependencies on the coaching relationship

The Coaching and Mentoring Network (UK)