Coaching has traditionally been associated with sports. Every top athlete has a coach. In the last few years, coaching has become applicable in every area, in business and in every aspect of life as well as sport.
It is quite normal for someone to see a coach to help them achieve their goals in their life and work.
Coaching is a partnership between coach and client.
The coach helps the client to achieve their personal best and to produce the results they want in their personal and professional lives. Coaching ensures the client can give their best, learn and develop in the way they wish.
The coach need not be an expert in their clients’ field of work.
It is useful to distinguish coaching from similar activities.
It unlocks your potential to maximise your performance. Coaching helps you to learn rather than teaching you.
According to the International Coaching Community, the essence of coaching is:
To help you change in the way you wish and helping you go in the direction you want to go.
Coaching supports you at every level in becoming who you want to be.
Coaching builds awareness empowers choice and leads to change.
Mentoring is when a senior colleague, seen as more knowledgeable and worldly wise gives advice and provides a role model. Mentoring involves wide ranging discussions that may not be limited to the work context. A mentor is a sponsor with great professional experience in their client’s field of work. Both mentoring and coaching are concerned mainly with achievements in the present and the future.
Counseling is working with a client who feels uncomfortable, or dissatisfied with their life. They are seeking guidance and advice. A counselor works remedially on a client’s problem.
Therapy is working with the client who seeks relief from psychological or physical symptoms. The client wants emotional healing and relief from mental pain. Therapy deals with the client’s mental health. Coaching deals with the client’s mental growth. The client’s motive for entering therapy or counseling is usually to get away from pain or discomfort, rather than moving towards desired goals. Coaching is not remedial, it is generative. Both therapy and counseling are more likely to involve understanding and working with past experience than coaching.
Training is the process of getting knowledge skills or abilities by study, experience or teaching. The trainer by definition is the expert, and the training course is likely to be targeted on specific skills for immediate results. Training is also likely to be one to many rather than one to one.
A consultant provides expertise and solves business problems, or develops a business as a whole. A consultant deals with the overall organization or specific parts of it and not individuals within it. Consultants only indirectly affect individuals.
Teaching passes knowledge from teacher to student. The teacher knows something the student does not. The opposite is true in coaching. The client is the expert and the client has the answers, not the coach.
Coaching is a confidential and tailored development process to enable individuals to optimize their capabilities.
Coaching is a comprehensive process that may involve all areas of the client’s life.
The client should take responsibility for the coaching relationship. In this context, a valuable foundation for successful coaching is the willingness and ability of the client to reflect his/her own actions and behaviors.
The coach empowers the client, raise self-awareness, facilitate explorations and guide through resolutions.
The coach shall maintain the strictest levels of confidentiality with all client information, except as otherwise authorized by the client, or as required by law.
The coach will ensure at the beginning of the coaching engagement that the client understands the nature of coaching.
The coach trusts the client to be naturally creative, resourceful and whole.
The coach’s responsibility is to:
Coaching is a comprehensive process that may involve all areas of the client’s life.
The client should take responsibility for the coaching relationship. In this context, a valuable foundation for successful coaching is the willingness and ability of the client to reflect his/her own actions and behaviors.
The coach empowers the client, raise self-awareness, facilitate explorations and guide through resolutions.
The coach shall maintain the strictest levels of confidentiality with all client information, except as otherwise authorized by the client, or as required by law.
The coach will ensure at the beginning of the coaching engagement that the client understands the nature of coaching.
The coach trusts the client to be naturally creative, resourceful and whole.
The coach’s responsibility is to:
- Discover, clarify and align with what the client wants to achieve
- A certified English translation must be provided if the documentation is not in English
- Elicit client-generated solutions and strategies
- Hold the client responsible and accountable.
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