What is coaching, and why does it work?

We all experience moments where we encounter a challenge at work without knowing what to do, or the best way to move out of it effectively. This is where coaching can help. There’s no single definition of what coaching is, and it’s used in different ways by different types of coaches offering different services.

Here are some of my insights, tips and advice on what coaching is, and how to get the best from it.

It’s worth noting I’m contextualising coaching here as being in the workplace - so it’s different from Life Coaching - although many of the concepts I introduce here, can of course be applied to Life Coaching as well.

The difference between coaching and mentoring

It’s important to understand the difference between coaching and mentoring.

Both coaching and mentoring are approaches used for development, to improve someone’s awareness and how they operate - their performance. This could be how someone deals with conflict with a colleague; how they navigate the business through a challenging set of circumstances; or scaling up the business and employing new staff (which means having to let go of certain tasks or responsibilities).

Coaching places emphasis on outcomes and is typically future focused - “where are you now and where would you like to get to?”. Coaching differs from therapeutic interventions like counselling, which tends to focus on looking backwards to understand why things are the way they are. Coaching places responsibility for taking action on the client or coachee, and can be used as a way of changing behaviour.

Mentoring on the other hand, typically involves a more experienced and often a more senior colleague or peer imparting knowledge to a less experienced colleague - this is ’downward’ mentoring. But, mentoring can also include ‘upward’ and ‘horizontal’ mentoring, where senior peers learn from junior or younger peers who might challenge the more senior leader (upward), and peers at the same maturity level co-mentoring through similar experiences (horizontal). This can include cross-sector mentoring, bringing fresh insight from a different perspective or practice.

Both coaching and mentoring are valid tools for personal and professional development, but it’s important that the choice of approach is chosen by the operating context - the requirements of that person, and the outcome desired.

Mentoring is more appropriate where specific skills, knowledge and results are needed. Coaching is more applicable when the process of reaching the outcome is just as important as the outcome itself (this can also include circumstances where the outcome isn’t clearly defined or even known).

So, coaching can support defining a clear goal or outcome or by identifying multiple options. Coaching can then support the coachee to assess and review these options against criteria important to them and their circumstances, to determine the best outcome in that specific context.

The benefits of coaching

1. Getting clear on your goals: coaching can help you to take an aspiration and turn it into a tangible outcome that can be achieved.
2. Gaining clarity on the things which are stopping you from achieving your goals. Hint: these are often hidden away in our subconscious which means we are not acutely aware of them!
3. Coaching can help to explore different options to achieve your goal and crucially, explore the consequences of different options which can highlight unintended and undesirable consequences before you take action.
4. Generate new insight about yourself and about limiting beliefs or behaviours which may be unhelpful. We all have these! Coaching can help us to better understand ourselves and move away from patterns which may be inadvertently blocking us from achieving the things we want.
5. Coaching generates increased self awareness, tools and insights which can be applied in many other situations and contexts (not necessarily work-related). The aim of coaching is for the coaching client (the coachee) to become autonomous, so the end of the coaching relationship is always very clearly set out from the start - coaching is not a crutch!

Taking action

Coaching isn’t about getting advice. No one can tell you what is right for you better than you can. Coaching involves you as the coaching client being able to be really honest with yourself about the things that are bothering or blocking you.

A good coach will do this without judgement. A good coach will also listen intently to you and will ask you incisive questions which generate new insight. Coaching is a process of self-discovery, so if you’re not prepared to dig into that, that’s ok! But if so, coaching is unlikely to yield the results you desire.

Effective coaching recognises you as the agent for change and will enable you to feel empowered and capable to take the actions required to shift you from where you are now, to where you want to be. Coaching isn’t a panacea and the results you get are entirely dependent on the actions you’re willing to take, with your coach’s support, of course! With coaching, the more you put in, the more you get out.

Hopefully this has given you some useful information about what coaching is and when it can be used. One final tip: coaches will typically have an introductory call (these are usually free, so question if a coach is seeking to charge you for this!) with their prospective clients to better understand their clients’ needs and to explain their own coaching approach. A credible coach will always be honest if they feel that they are not the right coach for the job. 

Vicki Ramsden from Integrity Performance is an executive leadership coach specialising in supporting leaders to develop their own authentic leadership style. Find out more on her website.

Header photo by Simon Callaghan.  

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk