Is Professional Coaching Right for Me Right Now?

The rate of change is accelerating, so how do we learn to work quicker while also improving the quality of our output? There is no doubt that complex skills are needed for the challenges of our modern workplaces. But is professional coaching the best way to acquire these skills? This is what this article will investigate.

Professional coaching is a compelling option

Professional coaching services can help you understand your own and others’ mindsets and motivations, build your ability to work with a diverse range of people, and nurture skills required by your organization.

At an organizational level, professional coaching can provide a good structure around which key skills that are required by the company can be grown and reinforced. As the existing teams are strengthened and future leaders equipped, coaches are also able to improve internal synergies, and organizational performance as well as a stable culture that can be used to achieve strategic outcomes.

Against the clear benefits that professional coaching offers individuals or whole organizations, the question of whether coaching is right is really more a question of whether it is the right option right now.

Is it right for me right now?

There are a range of factors that those responsible for the leadership of their organization consider when deciding if the time is right for professional coaching, some of these may be whether or how the organization is planning to improve performance, which skills it needs, or whether some behaviors of teams or individual colleagues need to be shifted.

Experts suggest these questions be considered as part of the decision-making process:

How much time is available to invest in coaching?

This would include the time spent during coaching sessions and that required to reflect or work through material raised during these sessions.

Is the organization prepared to explore and define the areas of development?

This concerns how committed the organization is to defining and making the scope of the development clear to all involved.

Are the company and the people within it willing to grow, improve, and make the personal and professional changes this will require?

Those being coached will explore how they think, and their motivation for behaving in particular ways, but professional coaching is not a quick fix for a destructive mindset or behavior. It will raise questions about new ways of behavior in responding to workplace challenges. Is the firm prepared for these changes?

Individuals who sign up for coaching should be aware that they will be challenged to become more self-aware. One goal of this is to change destructive behaviors and improve individual accountability. Having accountability goals will require difficult conversations. Not only with your coach but possibly also with your colleagues.

A professional coach can help their client find answers to hard questions, but how the client applies what they learn in their personal and professional life will be up to them.

Is there clarity around what the purpose is of coaching, and what individuals want out of it?

Organizations should set up a metric of business measurable results, and individuals should communicate clearly with their managers on how their personal development and impact on the business needs to be achieved because of coaching.

If you can answer yes more often than not, then it is likely that now is the right time for your organization and teams to benefit from professional coaching.

What can you expect?

At its heart, coaching is a development process that is designed to help individuals and groups build skills and an open-minded growth mindset that enables a sustainable performance culture that is in line with the objectives of the organization. A coaching program is measured against the organization’s defined strategic outcomes to determine its success.

Professional coaching benefits

A safe space

This is required to experiment, learn, and understand what you want to do and what you need to do so that you can meet the stated goals as well as your own business objectives.

The chance to nurture a greater sense of self-awareness and accountability

Whether in a professional or personal context, having a greater awareness of others and their expectations can strengthen your leadership skills and your ability to communicate and collaborate.

A useful sounding board

The session with the coach provides an opportunity for open and transparent reflection and gives the professional coach space to reply with their own observations and helpful feedback.

This will help to identify potential risk behaviors of the person being coached and challenge them. Something to be aware of is the utility of the time between sessions. Those being coached are required to use this time to reflect and put into action their learnings if they are to maximize the benefit of professional coaching.

The value gleaned from the coaching sessions is a direct result of the time and energy that you invest into it. By continuing to learn and develop, looking for opportunities to ask for feedback, and acting to course-correct you can gain more from a coaching program than a passive recipient.

Individual input

Coaching provides an opportunity for the individual receiving coaching and their manager to agree on the objective of coaching, the required outcomes, and how they align with the organization’s strategies.

Christian counseling for coaching

If you are looking for additional help to identify whether the time is right to receive the input and help of a professional coach, browse our online counselor directory or contact our office at Culver City Christian Counseling in California to schedule an appointment. The professional Christian counselors and coaches in Culver City would be honored to walk with you on this journey.