What is coaching?

The simplest way to understand coaching is to think of it as a process. Like all processes, it involves a series of steps leading to the end goal. This end goal is always the client’s realisation of their full potential.

Of course, there is more to coaching the above explanation. Let’s have a look at some definitions of coaching:

“Partnering with clients in a thought provoking and creative process that inspires them

to maximise their personal and professional potential.”

The International Coaching Federation (ICF)

"A collaborative solution-focused, results-orientated and systematic process in which the coach facilitates the enhancement of work performance, life experience, self-directed learning and personal growth of the coachee.“

The Association for Coaching

“It unlocks a person’s potential to maximise their performance.

Coaching helps them to learn rather than teaching them.”

The International Coaching Community (ICC)

“Coaching assists a client to bridge the gap between where they are now, to where they would like to be far more effectively than if they worked alone.”

The Coaching Academy

What does that mean?

Summarising all those definitions, we can say that coaching is about a coach partnering with a client to help them maximize their potential. This is done through thought-provoking questioning and activities that tap into existing but often hidden sources of capability and creativity in the client.

Coaching can focus on areas such as career or business as well as other aspects of one’s personal life like wellbeing, health and personal growth.

Coaching is about starting with the goal in mind. The goal is usually to improve or change something about the coachee’s circumstances. Knowing, understanding and believing in your end goal is essential because if you don’t know where you want to go, the coach and you can’t “travel” there together.

What coaching is not

At times, coaching gets confused with other modalities. Let’s consider some of the most common modalities to find out what they may have in common with coaching and makes them different from it.

The main feature that coaching and mentoring, training, and counselling/therapy have in common is the fact that the client needs to overcome a barrier in order to achieve a goal.

Mentoring is a hierarchical relationship where a senior colleague, as a role model, gives advice from a place of greater professional experience and wider knowledge of the mentee’s field of work. This is different from coaching where the coach is not required to be an expert in the clients’ life and where questioning, rather than advice giving, is used.

Like coaching, mentoring focuses on the present and future and is concerned mainly with the achievement of goals. On the other hand, unlike coaching, which is normally delivered during a short-term and structured series of interventions aimed to overcome a specific goal, mentoring usually involves a longer lasting and less structured relationship.

In training, the trainer, like a teacher, is an expert because they know something that the student doesn’t. In fact, training and teaching, like mentoring, are a directive form of development where there is a transfer of knowledge from the trainer to the student. Therefore, the trainer/student relationship is also hierarchical unlike in coaching where the client is considered to be the expert in their circumstances. In fact, the client is understood to already have the answers to resolve their challenge. Through thought-provoking questioning and activities, the coach’s job is to facilitate the discovery of the coachee’s relevant skills and abilities to overcome the issue and fulfil their potential.

Like coaching, counselling and therapy use questions as one of their main techniques. Unlike coaching, counselling and therapy aim to help clients reflect on and resolve issues in the past. As in coaching, a counsellor/client relationship is one-to-one, and it aims to increase the client’s self-awareness. Like coaching, in some forms of counselling, such as the Person-Centred-Approach, the relationship is non-hierarchical as the client is seen as the expert in their own life.

What are the elements of coaching?

The client:

The client is at the centre of the process. It is the client’s agenda that dictates the direction of the coaching process. All the questions posed to the clients are aimed at helping them understand what is going on in their life, what they want to achieve, where they may be stuck. It is about the client and the solution within them which coaching helps uncover.

In coaching, we believe that the client isn’t broken and doesn’t need to be fixed. Through coaching tools, the client reflects, increases their self-awareness, identifies strategies and solutions and begins to take action. It’s about making changes and taking steps, not fixing.

The coach:

The main role of the coach is to help bring awareness to the client of any words and behaviours which are the symptoms of outdated thinking patterns. This helps the client get unstuck from their current unhelpful and unsatisfying situation and find strategies to move from the current position to a future improved reality.

The coach encourages the client’s awareness to surface by listening to what is being said and to the meanings and feelings behind the words. The coach asks questions to encourage the client to see things from a different perspective and assess their thinking for evidence of its truth. When what needs to change or improve has been identified, the coach will work with the client to formulate a goal, agree the best steps towards it and help them stay focused and remain on track to ensure progress is achieved.

The coach’s agenda is the client’s agenda. The approach of the coach is without judgment and non-directive. This means that a coach will support a coachee towards whatever is the right goal for them (not the goal the coach thinks is the right one). They will not tell the client what to do but will encourage them to work out what the best next step is. They will challenge the client to find alignment in their lives with their core values. The coach’s job isn’t to impart external wisdom but to help the client rediscover their own insight and intuition and let them be guided by it.

How do I know coaching is right for me?

Coaching is the right next step for you if:

• you are feeling stuck or like you are going round in circles

• you have been noticing self-limiting beliefs and thinking patterns, or a reoccurring imposter syndrome voice telling you something is not for you

• you want to look at your life from a different perspective, widen your horizon or see the bigger picture of your personal and/or professional journey

• you want to change something and want to take action, even if you may not feel fully ready to take action right now

What does the research say about coaching?

Scientific research about the beneficial effects of coaching is generally very promising.

In a 2015 meta-analysis of existing research on the effectiveness of workplace coaching, clients reported positive effects on organisational and individual outcomes such as leadership and technical skills, self-efficacy, well-being, satisfaction and work performance.

A 2017 case study research within a large (100,000 employee), multinational organisation looked at the results of individual and group coaching in 18 female participants. They reported that the experience of coaching had resulted in:

• increased self-awareness: the participants had a deeper understanding of themselves, and of their impact on others

• increased self-confidence: they noticed a reduction in their self-limiting thoughts and beliefs

• a deeper level than awareness and self knowledge (identity and purpose): they were clearer about their purpose in life

• more realistic expectations and increased self-compassion (self-leadership): they recognised and changed the unrealistic expectations that they had placed upon themselves using self-compassion

If you are interested in exploring what coaching can do for you, you can schedule an initial free consultation with me on info.healingmovement@gmail.com

Disclaimer: The author assumes no responsibility for the topicality, correctness, completeness or quality of information provided. This article is not intended as medical advice. Readers should consult their medical professional before making any changes to their lifestyle, including but not limited to diet and physical activity and exercise.

© 2022 Lucia Micheluzzi © 2022 Healing Movement - all rights reserved

References:

Bonneywell, S. (2017) ‘How a coaching intervention supports the development of female leaders in a global organisation’, International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring Special Issue No. 11, June 2017, Page 58, available at https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/

CIPD, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (2021) ‘Coaching and Mentoring’ available at https://portal.raisethebar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/coaching-mentoring-factsheet.pdf

Coacharya (2019) ‘Coaching vs. Therapy vs. Mentoring vs. Counselling vs. Consulting’ available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAhv4z97Eb0

Counselling Tutor (2022c) ‘Counselling Theories Compared and Contrasted’ available at https://counsellingtutor.com/counselling-approaches/counselling-theories-compare-and-contrast/

ICC, International Coaching Community (2022) ‘What is Coaching?’ available at https://internationalcoachingcommunity.com/what-is-coaching/

Jones, R. J., Woods, S. A. and Guillaume, Y. R. F. (2015) ‘The effectiveness of workplace coaching: a meta-analysis of learning and performance outcomes from coaching’, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 89 (2). pp. 249-277. ISSN 2044-8325 doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12119 available at https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/74522/

Sternard, D. (2021) Developing Coaching Skills, Moosburg (Austria), Econcise Gmbh