_What is Executive Coaching?
_The International Coach Federation defines executive coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. The coach’s job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources and creativity the client already possesses.
How is coaching distinct from other service professions?
Professional coaching is a distinct service. It focuses on a person and how he or she can strengthen the capacity to set goals, achieve outcomes and engage in personal change. Coaching is different from other support professions in the following ways:
• Therapy: Therapy deals with healing pain, dysfunction and conflict within an individual or in a relationship between two or more individuals. The emphasis is on resolving difficulties arising from the past that limit an individual's ability to function in the present. The intent is to improve psychological functioning and how to deal with life and work circumstances in more emotionally healthy ways. Coaching, on the other hand, is a profession that supports personal and professional growth. Its purpose is to encourage people to learn and change in pursuit of specific actions and results. These outcomes link directly to personal or professional success. Coaching is forward-moving and future-focused. Therapy outcomes often include improved emotional or feeling states, and while this may be a natural outcome of coaching, the main objective is to create actionable strategies to achieve specific goals in one's work or personal life. The emphasis is on action, accountability and follow through.
• Consulting: Organizations generally engage consultants to obtain specialized expertise. Consultants are expected to diagnose problems, prescribe, and on occasion, implement solutions. Coaching assumes that individuals or teams are capable of generating their own solutions. The role of the coach is to supply supportive, discovery-based approaches and frameworks that stimulate new thinking.
• Mentoring: Mentoring can be defined as guiding from one's own experience or sharing experience in a specific industry or government sector to support someone in his or her career development. It is sometimes confused with coaching. Although some coaches provide mentoring as part of their coaching, such as in mentor-coaching new coaches, coaches are not typically mentors to those they coach.
• Training: Training programs are aimed at students acquiring knowledge and information based on learning objectives established 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 using an established curriculum. Coaching is less linear without a set curriculum plan.
• Athletic Development: Though sports metaphors are often used, a professional coach is different from the traditional sports coach. The athletic coach is often seen as an expert who guides and directs the behaviour of individuals or teams based on his or her greater experience and knowledge. Professional coaches possess these qualities, but it is the experience and knowledge of the individual or team that determines the direction. Additionally, professional coaching, unlike athletic development, does not focus on behaviours that are being executed poorly or incorrectly. Instead, the focus is on identifying opportunities for development based on individual strengths and capabilities.
How is coaching distinct from other service professions?
Professional coaching is a distinct service. It focuses on a person and how he or she can strengthen the capacity to set goals, achieve outcomes and engage in personal change. Coaching is different from other support professions in the following ways:
• Therapy: Therapy deals with healing pain, dysfunction and conflict within an individual or in a relationship between two or more individuals. The emphasis is on resolving difficulties arising from the past that limit an individual's ability to function in the present. The intent is to improve psychological functioning and how to deal with life and work circumstances in more emotionally healthy ways. Coaching, on the other hand, is a profession that supports personal and professional growth. Its purpose is to encourage people to learn and change in pursuit of specific actions and results. These outcomes link directly to personal or professional success. Coaching is forward-moving and future-focused. Therapy outcomes often include improved emotional or feeling states, and while this may be a natural outcome of coaching, the main objective is to create actionable strategies to achieve specific goals in one's work or personal life. The emphasis is on action, accountability and follow through.
• Consulting: Organizations generally engage consultants to obtain specialized expertise. Consultants are expected to diagnose problems, prescribe, and on occasion, implement solutions. Coaching assumes that individuals or teams are capable of generating their own solutions. The role of the coach is to supply supportive, discovery-based approaches and frameworks that stimulate new thinking.
• Mentoring: Mentoring can be defined as guiding from one's own experience or sharing experience in a specific industry or government sector to support someone in his or her career development. It is sometimes confused with coaching. Although some coaches provide mentoring as part of their coaching, such as in mentor-coaching new coaches, coaches are not typically mentors to those they coach.
• Training: Training programs are aimed at students acquiring knowledge and information based on learning objectives established 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 using an established curriculum. Coaching is less linear without a set curriculum plan.
• Athletic Development: Though sports metaphors are often used, a professional coach is different from the traditional sports coach. The athletic coach is often seen as an expert who guides and directs the behaviour of individuals or teams based on his or her greater experience and knowledge. Professional coaches possess these qualities, but it is the experience and knowledge of the individual or team that determines the direction. Additionally, professional coaching, unlike athletic development, does not focus on behaviours that are being executed poorly or incorrectly. Instead, the focus is on identifying opportunities for development based on individual strengths and capabilities.
Tel. (613) 979-7500 | [email protected] | © Hardy Coaching Group 2012
Built by Will Powered Websites
Built by Will Powered Websites