Career Progression and Life Goals
Professional life may be at once fascinating, rewarding, demanding, or overwhelming. There may be little space or time for you to consider where you are, where you want to be and how to get there. Your coach will encourage you to think through what is most important to you, help you to identify your goals and aspirations and how to attain them while maintaining the balance between your working and personal lives. Coaching discussions could include:
- Exploring personal values to direct and support change.
- Career development, such as preparing for or consolidating a promotion.
- Major career decisions or changes in direction.
Developing as a Leader
Talent and technical skills in your chosen profession may have taken you a long way - so far that you find yourself in a leadership role. Often the most talented people find themselves in leadership positions for which they have received neither the specific training, nor have had the opportunity to develop the leadership strategies they need to be able to lead to the best of their abilities. The strategies you have used with colleagues, team members and stakeholders may have served you very well this far, but something more and different may now be needed. A leadership coach or mentor will use their own professional knowledge and expertise to help you develop your own leadership style and optimise your leadership performance within the environment in which you work. Your development journey may focus on:
- Exploring leadership models and styles.
- Executive presence.
- Communication skills.
- Conflict management.
- Providing feedback and performance management.
- Coaching and motivating your team.
- Managing stakeholders and networking.
Resilience, Managing Change and Difficult Situations.
Professional life is constantly changing, sometimes at break-neck speed. A coach/mentor can help individuals, teams and leaders to find ways of responding to changing circumstances in creative and positive ways and highlight completely new perspectives. A coach can facilitate new ways to deal with conflict; conflicting strategic demands, demands from stakeholders or conflicts between team members. Underpinning the ability to manage change and difficult situations well, the development of individual and collective resilience is key to maintaining healthy personal and professional relationships.
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The Coaching Journey
Your coaching journey will typically involve the following stages:
Agreeing to embark on the journey:
The coach and client meet and decide whether they both wish to work together on the client’s journey. They agree how they will work together, for how long, for what purpose, and how much it will cost.
Identifying the starting point:
To navigate successfully, you need to know where you are now and how you arrived there. Your coach will help you understand your current capabilities through reflection and self-appraisal. External feedback gathered from colleagues, friends or family on your behalf can provide valuable insights into how you are seen by others. Psychometric tools are available to complete the picture.
Deciding the destination and route:
Coaching is about change and you need to know where you are headed. With your coach, you will clarify your goals and ensure that the destination is achievable. You will plan your route to reaching your goal, understand what you need to learn or change, and break the journey into manageable, measurable steps.
Travel and arrival:
You make the journey yourself. Your coach cannot do it for you, but will be there to help you keep on track, deal with any barriers in your way and identify and celebrate the changes you have made.
Coaching and Mentoring
Coaching and Mentoring differ from each other in the style of input provided by the coach. They work together to provide personalised learning and development to facilitate the definition and achievement of personal goals.
Coaching:
Works from the premise that you have the answers and resources to achieve your goals and that the role of the coach is to facilitate discovery of your own answers.
Is a conversation between you and your coach within a productive, results focused context.
Uses relevant questions at critical moments and provides a safe place in which you can take new viewpoints, identify what is and what is not working, try new behaviours and strategies, learn from experiences, and move towards the achievement of your goals.
Involves the whole person and takes account of wider aspects of your life such as long-term career goals, work and personal balance, and personal values.
Mentoring
Mentoring supplements coaching by providing new skills and insights which you can practice and develop with your mentor’s support. Your mentor provides advice and teaching based on knowledge and experience of topics relevant to your development journey
Is coaching right for you?
Coaching can bring real benefits to you, but it does require and investment of time, energy and money. The following statements will help you decide whether coaching could help you at this stage in your journey. Please consider each statement and give a score between 0 (I completely disagree) and 10 (I completely agree) and add them up.
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Personal development and continuous learning are crucial to being at my best and maximizing my own performance.
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This is the right time for me to make changes that will move me forward. I am ready and willing to do so.
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I can be relied upon to do the work necessary to get me where I want to be. My coach is there to support me but not rescue me.
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New ways of thinking are of great interest to me. I am prepared to experiment with different ways of doing things and will not prejudice my growth by resisting my coach.
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I will provide the full story and tell the whole truth to my coach.
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Having a coach will be a positive investment in myself. I am prepared to pay a coaching fee for this benefit. Or, if my employer is paying, I am prepared to make an investment of my time in the coaching process.
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I am prepared to tell my coach if I am uncomfortable with anything that is said.
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Punctuality is not a problem for me and I will be on time for my coaching appointments.
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I consider myself to be a happy and self-motivated person.
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I am ready to have my own coach and be a constructive partner in the relationship.
How did you score?
10 - 30 Coaching is unlikely to be of benefit to you at the moment.
31 - 50 You are coachable, but set and adhere to specific ground rules to ensure you stay motivated and focused.
51 - 75 You are definitely coachable. Set clear goals and boundaries with your coach to provide a positive coaching framework.
76 - 100 You are very coachable and should ask your coach to challenge you and ask a lot from you to move you forwards.
These statements do encourage you to think about yourself and if any of them have raised questions for you, you are welcome to contact Glyn to discuss you reactions in confidence.