How Coaching Helps
As the world of work changes dramatically, many people are looking at coaching to help them with their professional, let alone personal, lives. The key areas of focus, according to the International Coach Federation, is coaching that helps boost self-esteem, create career opportunities and achieve work-life balance.
How can a coach address each of these concerns?
Self-esteem
A strong self-belief, together with positive self-esteem, is critical for career, and life success (however you define that). Being confident in any situation allows you to be proactive, assertive and focused.
Coaches can provide the kind of leadership that allows those being coached to broaden their perspectives, look at a larger range of options than they might otherwise do so on their own, and discover multiple opportunities for growth and problem solving. By asking the right, often powerful, questions, coaches can enable an honest and open investigation into a range of concerns which, on our own, we’re often blind to (or perhaps, wish to ignore). Often, the act of knowing you have dug deep and looked at things squarely and accurately can provide a solid base for one’s confidence in undertaking future actions and understanding behaviour.
Career opportunities
If you’re managing a team, some or all of whom have been known to “job hop” consistently, it may be confronting to think about investing in your people given the limited returns that might be available. Coaching your team – allowing them to fail forward, when things are done wrong, showing how to do things differently, and being with your team instead of criticising from “outside” – is a significant opportunity that can not only extend the time your team members stay with you and your company, but is also more likely to see a boost in the team’s performance while they are with you. A win-win indeed.
On the subject of job hopping, there’s always another ladder to climb if you’re prepared to look for it. However, coaches can help you realise that it might just be better to climb a few solid, quality ladders than jump from ladder to ladder hoping one will turn into gold dust in short order. There’s few, if any, shortcuts to places worth going, and your coach can help you choose the right ladders, at the right times, and with the right climbing technique, to reach that place you wish to arrive at.
Work-life balance
Countless studies in recent times have shown that personal / professional development and work-life balance are more important considerations for many, if not most, employees than financial rewards. However, those same studies, and other reports, indicate achieving work-life balance concerns are seemingly out of reach for many.
Coaches help their participants review, investigate and pursue those developments they consider important in their life. By focusing upon key personal developments (which may be professional in nature), coaches enable the achievement of balance, by ensuring the professional commitments don’t continue to overwhelm all other considerations. Moreover, by taking the time to stop, pause, and reflect upon what’s important, what’s working, and what’s not, coaches help their clients achieve their desired sense of balance and productivity, rather than continue down paths that may lead to feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, and downright unhealthy.