People ask me questions after reading my first article (click this to read https://link.medium.com/tQljcMLMb0) about coaching. People I met and are told that I am professional coach wonder and have no clear idea about what I am actually doing.
So you now teach people, give training? Ah, you are now consultant — even when I tell them coach is not consultant. One of my potential coachees think that I am marketing coach given my years of experience as a professional marketer. One of my coachees expect me to give solution to his problem.
Misperception of Coaching
Some people in corporation or organization think that coaching is needed only for non performing employees. It is a wrong perception that sometimes make employees “rewarded” coach think that they are punished by given one.
According to the International Coach Federation (ICF) coaching means “Partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” Coaching is meant to transform people to be a better person or leader maximizing their potential. In a corporate world, it can cover development, transition or remedial. So it is not true that coaching is only for non performing employees as many are rewarded coach to develop them to support their career aspirations or prepare them to be future leaders.
The misperception of coaching purpose may cost the relationship between coach and coachee that will impact the result of the coaching process as trust may not be built and coachee will not be engaged in the process. It is then important for coach and coachee build understanding and trust before the process starts.
The other misperception about coaching — particularly happening in corporate — is mixing coaching with mentoring or even worse, giving instruction to coachee. In the corporate world, where trained/un-trained corporate coach, either HR people or coachees’ direct superiors often tend to embed entrusted message or give instructions into the coaching session. This may ruin coaching process, break the trust and lead to coachees’ disengagement.
What is professional coaching?
With today’s volatile, complex and more competitive context, maximizing one’s potential becomes essential. Professional coaches honour their clients as being experts on their own life and profession and firmly believe that each client is creative, complete and resourceful.
With that, the coaches’s responsibility is to be their clients’s partner in the coaching process:
Clarify and co-assess the client’s desired goal.
Encourage and support the client on his/her self-discovery journey.
Challenge the client in finding his/her own solutions.
Support the client to maintain a high level of accountability.
The process helps clients critically improve their life and work views and, at the same time, accelerate their leadership abilities and unlock their potential to be their best version of themselves.
How is coaching different from other methods?
Professional coaching focuses on setting goals, creating outcomes and managing personal transformation. It’s helpful to understand coaching by distinguishing it from other support professions.
Consulting: Individuals or organizations retain consultants for their expertise. While consulting approaches vary widely, the assumption is that the consultant will diagnose problems and 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 setting and reaching their own objectives.
Training: Training programs are based on the 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.
Counseling: Counseling 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.
Sports Coaching: 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 determines 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.
source: ICF training documents and articles
