What is professional coaching?

The International Coaching Federation defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential, which is particularly important in today’s uncertain and complex environment. Coaches honor the client as the expert in their life and work and believe every client is creative, resourceful, and whole. Standing on this foundation, the coach's responsibility is to:

Discover, clarify, and align with what the client wants to achieve.
Encourage client self-discovery.
Elicit client-generated solutions and strategies.
Hold the client responsible and accountable.
This process helps clients dramatically improve their outlook on work and life while improving their leadership skills and unlocking their potential.

How is coaching distinct from other service professions?

Professional coaching focuses on setting goals, creating outcomes, and managing personal change. Sometimes, it’s helpful to understand coaching by distinguishing it from other personal or organizational support professions.

Therapy: Therapy deals with healing pain, dysfunction, and conflict within an individual or in relationships. The focus is often on resolving difficulties arising from the past that hamper an individual's emotional functioning in the present, improving overall psychological functioning, and dealing with the present in more emotionally healthy ways. Coaching, on the other hand, supports personal and professional growth based on self-initiated change in pursuit of specific, actionable outcomes. These outcomes are linked to personal or professional success. Coaching is future-focused. While positive feelings/emotions may be a natural outcome of coaching, the primary focus is on creating actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in one's work or personal life. The emphasis in a coaching relationship is on action, accountability, and follow-through.

Consulting: Individuals or organizations retain consultants for their expertise. While consulting approaches vary widely, the assumption is that the consultant will diagnose problems and prescribe and, sometimes, implement solutions. With coaching, the assumption is that individuals or teams can generate their solutions, with the coach supplying supportive, discovery-based approaches and frameworks.

Mentoring: A mentor is an expert who provides wisdom and guidance based on their experience. Mentoring may include advising, counseling, and coaching. The coaching process does not include advising or counseling; instead, it focuses on individuals or groups setting and reaching their objectives.

Training: Training programs are based on objectives the trainer or instructor sets. 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 that coincides with an established curriculum.

What are some typical reasons someone might work with a coach?

An individual or team might choose to work with a coach for many reasons, including but not limited to the following:

Something urgent, compelling, or exciting is at stake (a challenge, stretch goal, or opportunity)
A gap exists in knowledge, skills, confidence, or resources
A desire to accelerate results
A lack of clarity with choices to be made
Success has started to become problematic
Work and life are out of balance, creating unwanted consequences
Core strengths need to be identified, along with how best to leverage them