With so many professional development offers on the menu, and so little time available to dedicate to one’s personal and professional development, it can be difficult to choose the right option. How do you know what will best meet your needs?
Coaching is a great option for many people, because it is an established tool for supporting individuals to reach their potential, improve their relationships and increase their satisfaction. But more than that, coaching improves individual and organisational wellbeing during change, and promotes growth, empowerment and creativity. Coaching enhances communication, retention and commitment, and contributes to risk reduction and prevention of workplace disharmony.
Coaching is an efficient use of time and resources, because it is tailored to the needs of the client, and focuses on real issues, providing the opportunity for the client to explore, trial and review new approaches in real time.
But even coaching can present a plethora of options and choices to be made.
What type of coaching best fits your needs?
While there are many different ways to describe coaching, the type of coaching that best meets your needs, largely depends on the context.
Leadership coaching
Executive coaching
The biggest challenge for experienced executives can often be finding the time, headspace and energy to think and plan strategically, clarify a vision for their organisation or team, or to simply reflect objectively on organisational values and culture. Further, being a senior executive can be a lonely place. With everyone looking to you for direction and guidance, where can you get that support? Where can you go to process and address your weaknesses? Executive coaching provides private time and space to explore the “big issues”. It is time efficient, individual support focussed on building strengths, and creating space for reflection, self-development, creativity and innovation.
Experienced leader
Whether it is transitioning from managing staff, to managing managers, or to managing a business, effective behavioural and values-based transition is necessary at every level of leadership. We could all, no doubt, recall a manager who couldn’t seem to simply let us get on with the job they’d employed us to do. Making the transition to the next level effectively is all about what we value, how we see ourselves, and how we behave under pressure. Leadership coaching supports alignment between capabilities, values and leadership level.
New leader
Supporting a new leader to become a leader is arguably more about identity and values than it is about technical know-how. New leader coaching helps a new leader find their leadership identity and manage the tricky people-issues that new leaders find difficult to navigate.
Issue related coaching
Conflict coaching
Supporting individuals to consider their relationship, choices and impact, and develop goals and actions they can take to change unhelpful dynamics. Conflict coaching is a defined model of coaching that is highly effective in resolving conflict. It can be used with the parties involved in an acknowledged conflict, as a precursor to a formal mediation or facilitated discussion. But it can also be used with an individual who is experiencing (or suffering with) an unacknowledged conflict, by supporting the individual to explore the conflict in different ways, then to identify, and practice, different ways of responding. Used in this context, conflict coaching can be a wise risk-mitigation strategy.
Developmental or performance improvement coaching
Developmental or performance improvement coaching helps individuals to identify and build on their strengths, overcome weaknesses and make specific behavioural changes that will help them improve their effectiveness. Developmental coaching can be used as part of a treatment plan post investigation, to support an individual to change behaviours which have been found to have contributed to a problem or complaint in the workplace. For an organisation, providing development coaching in response to a proven complaint, can be a useful risk-mitigation strategy.
Team or group coaching
Team or group coaching helps groups and intact teams to build skills in self-reflection, mindfulness, autonomy and ability to relate to one another. From a newly formed team to a multi-disciplinary project team, to an executive leadership team – all these groups are only as effective as their ability to work together. Being able to work together is not about technical know-how – it’s about shared vision and goals, team/group purpose, team culture, how they celebrate success, and how they deal with problems and failures. Teams and groups who have a shared understanding of these things, are far more effective than those that lack this common understanding. Team coaching can help maximise effectiveness, boost productivity and prevent unhelpful conflict
Free Webinar
If you would like to learn how and when to deploy coaching to improve an individual’s performance at work then register now to attend Worklogic’s free lunchtime webinar, “How to use coaching to improve performance at work” on Thursday 20th February , presented by Worklogic Senior Consultant, Angela Seach.
About Angela Seach
Angela Seach is an experienced workplace coach, and brings substantial experience across the full spectrum of strategic and operational people and culture management functions in public and private sector organisations to Worklogic.
Prior to joining Worklogic, Angela was an accomplished senior organisational development manager with a significant track record in successfully driving outcomes in large, complex and geographically dispersed organisations, including the Country Fire Authority, Ansett Australia and Air New Zealand Engineering Services.
