Coaching has become an increasingly popular part of blended care models, both as a professional and personal development tool. People are hiring coaches for various reasons, from getting help scaling a business to learning how you can advance your skills. There are so many applications for it that each of them has its own methods and characteristics.
In this article, we will present coaching as a concept and go through its principles to show why, when, and how a coach can help you improve your life. Furthermore, we will try to better understand how coaching management works and what are the newest tools available today.
Before you read further, we think you’ll enjoy our $1 30-day trial of Quenza. With Quenza’s customizable coaching management tools, you’ll have everything at your fingertips to design impactful, effective coaching journeys and bring your clients even better results.
What Is Coaching?
Coaching is an umbrella term for various specific programs, so it might seem vague for someone who hasn’t tried it yet or hasn’t researched the topic so far.
In very simple terms, coaching refers to a form of development – professional or personal – where a person with expertise in a certain industry trains, guides and advises anyone who wants to reach a certain goal or level.
In coaching, the focus is on the present and near-future of the trainee, which makes it different from conventional training or mentoring. We will go through these distinctions further in the article.
Becoming a Coach
To become a coach, someone would need to provide certain expertise in the industry they choose to profess. Most times, a coach is a person who already achieved certain goals and milestones that they will later train others to reach.
In coaching, goals are set clearly and there is practical management of the process, as it seeks clear and quantifiable results.
There are countless types of coaching available for various industries, but they all have a common principle: teaching the coachee how to go from point A to point B at a certain time in their professional or personal lives.
In coaching, goals are set clearly and there is practical management of the process, as it seeks clear and quantifiable results. Coaching management depends from one coach to another, and the various tools used in the process can be general or highly specialized.
Coaching Management
Coaching management represents the way a coach creates a plan for their client and translates the initial ideas and goals in quantifiable elements that can be evaluated along the way.
Coaching management includes the tools needed for the administrative part of the coaching process, like billing, scheduling, tracking sessions, and also the in-depth information about each client.
Using Technology for Coaching Management
There are plenty of software solutions on the market for coaches and their clients, online coaching platforms where you can find the right coach for you and even enable remote coaching when needed. These platforms and applications can make a coach’s job easier and eliminate the time spent on manually adding reports to the coaching plan, communicating with the client, etc.
In today’s technological environment, being able to use modern tools for your job is crucial in understanding your clients and providing the best solutions for them. This is why, when choosing a coach for you, it helps to know that they are efficient at handling their own business and relationships before they help you out with yours.
How Coaching Management Helps Practitioners
As a credentialled coach, it’s important to remember that the coachee is the one who has the initiative for this process, setting up certain goals they want to reach. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t keep improving your own approach.
Doing so positions you to deliver a more supportive service, better helping your coachees to reach those goals in an optimal amount of time.
It’s where coaching management plays a key role – running your practice, and expanding your approach with technology and skills, so you can create tailored solutions and enhance your client’s chances of success.
Enhancing Your Practice
By constantly improving your coaching management skills, you as a practitioner can enhance the way you help others with your experience and skills. And technology, in particular, gives you more freedom to hone your technique, further your learning, and spend in-session time with clients.
In turn, you can enhance the way you guide others through their journeys, by co-creating tailored plans of action…
Collect and analyze data better, allowing you to hold others accountable for their outcomes…
And manage their progress along the way, like we’ve done with Quenza’s coaching management tools above.
Even though some clients keep a long-term relationship with their coaches, coaching is not a process with indefinite outreach and duration, but a series of leaps in your client’s development. And it’s exactly why great coaching management helps your skills are continually sharp.
Industries That Benefit the Most from Coaching
So, what sectors and what kinds of organizations tend to use coaches? Who can you benefit by improving your coaching management?
Let’s consider some of the most common industries where coaching is applied and get into a few details about the methods or tactics used.[1]
Business Coaching
A business coach can help you pinpoint the roadblocks in your business’ evolution and figure out a way to scale your company.[2]
Related: 5 Best Executive Coaching Apps & Leadership Coaching Tools
Career Coaching
If you are planning a career shift or find yourself stuck in a routine, a career coach can help you reset your expectations, identify your strengths and weaknesses, and plan the best approach for your next big career move.
Life Coaching
What can a life coach teach you about, exactly? A profession that has been official since 1995, life coaching helps you overcome the struggles in your life, specifically, ones outside your workplace.[3]
Sports and Fitness Coaching
One of the most commonly known applications of coaching is in sports, where a coach helps an individual or a team get through their competitions and supports their careers. This involves not only technicalities about the sport itself but also psychological elements, emotional support, management of the administrative part, etc.
A sports or fitness coach will guide an athlete to better performance, using a combination of expertise and fitness software to encourage a more productive lifestyle altogether.[4]
Financial Coaching
Unlike financial consulting, a financial coach will teach you how to manage your finances and how to stick to your financial plans. While a financial consultant will give you a clear plan to follow, your financial coach will help you develop new habits and rules to pending, saving, and managing your money.
Health Coaching
For patients struggling with certain conditions, like ADHD, chronic disease, obesity, chronic pain, disabilities, or recent injuries, life can be much more challenging. A health coach is there to support your recovery and healing while giving you the confidence and emotional strength needed to make your life better.[5] This kind of coaching is often a great way to see even better health outcomes from physical therapy, occupational therapy, and rehabilitation programs.
Relationship Coaching
Even for highly functioning adults, relationships can sometimes be a struggle, whether it’s their personal, business, or intimate relationship.
A relationship coach can guide their client through their relationship issues and teach them how to improve their communication skills, express their needs and conditions, and select the relationships that bring them something positive.
Educational Coaching
Students who want to reach certain milestones in their academic journey, are facing tough choices, or are just in need of guidance can have a coach guide them through these challenges.[6]
Mental Health Coaching
Mental health coaching helps individuals recognize their emotional and psychological well-being goals, then identify how they can achieve them. Drawing on a wide range of techniques, specialized psychology tools, and experience, a professional coach is able to design personalized journeys to improve their client’s psychological state.
As you can see, there are many sectors where coaching can be applied, and coaching management will greatly depend on the type of activity that is pursued. Coaches have different tools to do their work and we will present some of them further in the article.
But first, let’s understand more about what coaching is, and, more importantly, what it isn’t.
Managing Coaching: What It Isn’t
As you can see, there are many sectors where coaching can be applied, and coaching management will greatly depend on the type of activity that is pursued.
If you are still unsure what makes coaching different from other forms of guided development, here are some of the differences between coaching and therapy, mentoring, and consulting.
Coaching vs. Therapy
Some may say that a coach is just an uncertified, “wanna-be” psychotherapist. This statement is far from the truth, as coaches not only can be trained to be therapists but also the nature of the service they provide is quite different from psychotherapy.
Coaching | Therapy |
|---|---|
|
|
Coaching vs. Mentoring
Mentoring and coaching both involve one-on-one interactions to help a client achieve their personal learning and growth goals; both also cater to personal needs, individual preferences, and real-life issues.
There are further similarities that often get people confused between the two, such as the fact that they both complement formal education, work, or training, and that both are designed to support the client’s positive achievement of outcomes.[7]
However, there are critical differences distinguishing mentoring and coaching, and clarifying these is the responsibility of a professional coach prior to the commencement of a program.[6]
Take a look at our reviews of the best mentoring software options of 2022.
Coaching | Mentoring |
|---|---|
|
|
Coaching vs. Consulting
So, is coaching like consulting? These terms have been used interchangeably, but there are still essential differences between the two services. A consultant will have a different approach than a coach.
Coaching | Consulting |
|---|---|
|
|
Benefits of Coaching
If you are unsure of the advantages coaching brings, here are some general ways in which it improves someone’s life.
Boosting Your Confidence
As coaching focuses on more than just guiding you practically through achieving your goals, you gain confidence from the exercises and discussions the coach will lead.
Boosting your confidence is a common goal for all coaches, no matter the industry they practice in, as it is a crucial skill for anyone who wants to progress.
Improving Your Performance
Whether it’s working with your known skills and assets, or helping you find new ones, coaching will help you perform better and reach your short-term goals, and beyond.
Coaches will often use techniques like strengths-spotting, as we’ve done above, and self-reflection as part of goal-setting. Here, we created our own.
Building Effective Communication Skills
Communication is one of the most important skills for anyone, whether it’s for their job or for their personal relationships. Coaching will give you effective instruments to use when communicating, improving you in the long-term
Helping You Identify Your Blind Spots
One of the most valuable things a coach can bring to your life is perspective. Having someone who is trained in the niche you want to improve have a close look at your own performance and tell you objectively what you need to improve is a great advantage.
These are only a few of the advantages you get when hiring a coach. Most of the results one can see after coaching are very specific to their current goals and situation, as a good coach will tailor their plan for each client, and not apply a stencil tactic for everyone.
Teaching you How to Establish Further Goals
The best part about being coached is that it gives you perspective. People who have been working with a coach are better at establishing goals themselves, and creating new habits that make further goals easier to achieve.
Once clients have learned how to approach goal-setting with the help of a coach, whether through exercises or video coaching as we’ve done, doing so on their own can even become a positive habit. In this sense, coaching can be comparable to therapy or mentoring, as it improves your life in the long term.
Final Thoughts
Coaching is one of the most successful post-modern professions, as it focuses on an individual’s inner capacity to make the changes and improvements they need in their lives, and it’s based on inherently human skills that machines don’t grasp yet.
A good coach is not that hard to find, provided that you know what should be expected from coaching and what makes a coach good in the first place. Coaching management is a clear indicator of the overall style used in coaching, and it is a constantly improving sub-domain for this profession. As a client, it helps to know what your coach can do and what to ask when discussing a coaching plan with them.
If you believe you’re not entirely reaching your potential at the moment, consider consulting a coach about the current situation in your job, personal life, or academic career. You might find the best partner in a good coach who can show you the big picture and how to navigate it properly.
We hope you enjoyed reading our article. To turn your knowledge into a more efficient, effective coaching practice, don’t forget to sign up for your 1 month of Quenza for $1.
Our coaching management app is specially designed by professional e-coaches, and contains everything you need to onboard new clients, design customized activities, and build accountability for even more engaging coaching journeys and maximum goal achievement.
References
- ^ Flaherty, J. (2010). Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others. 3rd Edition. NY: Routledge.
- ^ Grover, S., & Furnham, A. (2016). Coaching as a developmental intervention in organisations: A systematic review of its effectiveness and the mechanisms underlying it. PloS one, 11(7), e0159137.
- ^ George, M. (2013). Seeking legitimacy: The professionalization of life coaching. Sociological Inquiry, 83(2), 179.
- ^ Côté, J., & Gilbert, W. (2009). An integrative definition of coaching effectiveness and expertise. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 4(3), 307.
- ^ Olsen, J. M., & Nesbitt, B. J. (2010). Health coaching to improve healthy lifestyle behaviors: an integrative review. American Journal of Health Promotion, 25(1), e1.
- ^ Carmel, R. G., & Paul, M. W. (2015). Mentoring and coaching in academia: Reflections on a mentoring/coaching relationship. Policy Futures in Education, 13(4), 479.
- ^ Rolfe, A. (2016). Do I need a mentor or a coach?. Korean Journal of Medical Education, 28(4), 397.
