5 Types of coaching you may benefit of in your professional development

Personal development can occur in many ways: training, mentoring and coaching being the most common forms in which one person can choose to follow, where, guided by a professional coach, would develop themselves, with intention, methodically, following a plan, towards their own goals. 

It is scientifically demonstrated that the coaching process follows in its impact a similar organic way in which the human brain functions. 

In coaching, the coachee trains themselves under the guidance of a professional coach to work with: attention (i.e. focus), reflection (looking back and learning), insight (creating a deeper level of understanding at visceral level), and action (i.e. effort). This happens in the format of the coaching conversations, which topics are drawn from those areas of the coachee's life that need most intervention and alignment with their goals, as brought up and permitted by the coachee.

In this post, I am going to talk about the various types of coaching, the difference between them and how you can benefit out of each of these.

1. Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching targets professionals in leadership positions in general the company’s so called C-suite made of company directors and very senior managers since the company’s thriving in the market depends on their performance. 

More and more, companies’ directors and senior leaders understand that the potential unleashed at their level can be multiplied if seconded by motivated and creative and resourceful middle and first line managers. 

This is the main reason why, in the last decade, executive coaching started to be a normal practice either brought in strategically or thought for, personally, by those professionals in management who know there is untapped potential in them and have the desire for more in their life. 

Moreover, even in challenging business environments when company resources are under tight scrutiny, organisations prioritise coaching in many cases. That’s because in times of uncertainty, leaders are responsible for making strategic decisions that may change the course of their organisations, and coaching provides a laser-focused approach specifically targeted for these key people in the organisation.

The focus of Executive Coaching is:

• Enhancing personal performance
• Scaling up organisational and stakeholder impact
• Taking talents and abilities to a new level
• Guided adjustment to new responsibility, requirements and situations demanded by transitioning in a higher level management position
• Improvement in team leadership performance
• Sustainable organisational change
• Increased emotional intelligence and self-awareness so leaders can use their strengths more effectively
• Higher levels of leader resilience to all kinds of pressure
• Development of strategic thinking skills

Within one-on-one sessions, clients are afforded an opportunity to observe themselves, reflect, make sense of their own thinking and behaviour in the context, and develop a personal awareness of their strengths and inner resources, and work on creating different response styles and behaviour when challenged. 

Executive coaching creates in addition new levels of accountability and perceived empowerment leading to new levels of motivation and engagement from these professionals and, as a ripple effect, similar for the environments they entertain or nurture in organisations.

2. Career Coaching

Career coaching is for anyone who is in the labour market and, with the aim of becoming visible for headhunters or recruiters, undertake the journey of discovering and implementing their own brand as a best future candidate for a certain professional targeted role, function, company, etc.

Furthermore, career coaching ensures not only the identification of the personal  professional avatar for the coachee, but also helps the coachee to integrate in their newly found position, role or function, accommodating fast with its requirements for performance. 

The focus of Career Coaching is then:

• Skills assessment
• Understanding the job market
• Understanding organisational processes
• Identifying opportunities and career-based roles that are “good fits”
• Developing career transition plans

The career coaching process helps clients understand the world of work and their own personal development. Within this space, coaches assist clients in establishing a career action plan with the intent of managing the better coachee’s career development path, enhancing employability, fit and integration in the new position.

It can help in many career-related situations, such as:

• Job hunting,
• Interview/resume skills polishing,
• Finding the right career goals and maintaining accountability along with obtaining them. 

Thus, clients can achieve fantastic results thanks to a combination of professional coaching advice or mentoring and use of psychometric tools.

Career coaching can be done as a separate service or can also be part of an enlarged executive coaching package.

3. Skills Coaching

Skills coaching sessions involve one-on-one programmes, which are tailored to a specific individual’s knowledge, experience, maturity and ambition. The focus is on achieving both individual and company objectives. The coaches who run these programmes, typically possess qualifications and experience in the areas in which the skills-transfer coaching is offered.

The main aim is leveraging the performance of the coachee while also enlarging the mental map with respect to the breadth or depth of a respective skill, its application, and of the right or different mindset necessary for a successful application. It focuses on:

• Identifying and refining career goals
• Flagging objectives within existing roles
• Recognising personal and career development needs
• Upskilling to enable better performance linked to achieving specific tasks

The in-house version of a skill coaching is on the job training and mentoring.

4. Relationship Coaching

Organisations are places where negotiations happen all the time, and, as a result, conflicts happen and are normal. Furthermore, organisations favours certain amounts of internal competition to the extent it does not harm internal cohesion and performance. Often, this translates into conflicts that unseen and unaddressed in due time can fester and damage the organisational culture and the performance itself. 

Relationship coaching aims to assist individuals and groups build healthier and more fulfilling relationships. When applied in organisations it can take the nuance of team coaching, useful also in case the components of a team changes and unity of action needs to be put in practice fast.

The focus of Relationship Coaching is to address existing or potential challenges in relationships by:

• Questioning assumptions and beliefs of each party in the relationship
• Challenging their internalisation of mutual agreements and understandings
• Identifying behavioural patterns, including group or subgroup behavioural patterns
• Setting clear and healthy relationship boundaries
• Uncovering new listening mechanisms
• Assisting with ways to better express feelings and views

 This type of coaching will provide coaches knowledge about conflict resolution and effective communication techniques, and stress management. In addition, coachees will work themselves on increasing their emotional and mental resilience.

5. Personal Life Coaching

This type of coaching intends to support individuals who wish to make some form of significant change happen in their lives, with such positive change pervading in all sectors of their life.

Life coaching help clients with:

• Exploring about the coachee’s aspirations, desires, goals.
• Defining attainable goals and split them in smaller manageable targets
• Finding answers and ways to achieve their goals
• Highlighting and understand current coachee’s potential, skills and talents
• Understanding the gap in coachee’s potential, resources and skills and the present life habits or beliefs maintaining the coachee unable to pursue the filling of this gap
• Ensuring a strong accountability partnership for the coachee be able to reach their goals.

This type of coaching assists individuals to discover answers based on their own values, preferences and perspectives. It is a reflective process, which attempts to instil knowledge by asking questions and challenging clients to find answers from within themselves.

In general, in organisations it will be present executive, career and skill coaching. Nevertheless, professional managers going through a coaching program will see that many of the professional issues or blockages or challenging situations they encounter have only a limited component related to pure skill or knowledge.  Furthermore, they will be able to see patterns happening in their life, beyond the professional life, and repeating in their personal life.

The skill-knowledge part is the easiest to fill in, whether by the coaching program (case in which it should be a clear outcome of the program) or in a separate training program. Nevertheless, it remains the coach’s responsibility to understand what the client does not know in terms of knowledge and, to either provide it (if contracted) or give the coachee heads-up in respect of what training the client needs to go through so to ensure the progress.

The basis for coaching is the coachee's mindset. All coaches will work beyond the point of knowledge/skill, and will look at WHO is their coachee now, who they aim to be and what is the work their coachee has to performa to close the mindset gap.