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FEATURE
ARTICLE
Coaching
You Toward Success
As someone looking either for more fulfillment from your work or to find
fulfilling work that truly represents who you are, you may be unsure
what coaching has to do with you.
Coaching is only for athletes, right? By the traditional definition, a coach
motivates his players to excel and helps them maximize their physical
attributes by evaluating their performance and pinpointing areas that
need extra work or attention.
Of course, this definitely holds true for athletes possessing limited abilities.
But do you realize that even superstars such as Michael Jordan or
Tiger Woods with extraordinary skills and talents have also benefited
from and achieved even greater levels of excellence thanks to the
objective eye of a highly qualified coach.
Not surprisingly, the corporate world has also come to recognize that executive
coaching has valuable benefits for business professionals. According
to the professional journal of Consulting to Management, "The
leaders of organizations such as Alcoa, American Red Cross, AT&T,
Ford, Northwestern Mutual Life, 3M, UPS, American Standard, the federal
governments of the United States and Canada are convinced that coaching
works to develop people and increase productivity."
Just like an athletic coach, an executive coach can help you set and achieve
the goals that are important to you; help you exceed current performance
levels; stand out from the pack; balance work, family, and personal
time; chart a decisive career path that is both fulfilling and sustainable;
and fully realize your professional, personal, and financial goals.
But, unlike most sports coaches who focus on time-limited results, the executive
coach's perspective is future oriented, focusing on ways you can grow
and improve for a lifetime. This is also a sharp contrast to the typical
boss or office manager, who usually looks at past performance and
focuses on those areas in which an employee is deficient.
Much of management is still stuck in the mindset of the past, believing
they must find something wrong to prove they are diligently "managing"
their staff. This explains why most people view employee reviews with
such dread and also why executive coaching has the unmatched potential
to be of such value to you.
Executive Coaching is usually done one-on-one or in small groups. The partnership
is always focused on the future, on future opportunities and ways
to improve, not on pointing out errors of the past. It is tailored
to bring out your unique gifts and abilities.
Here are a few things that even the world's greatest executive coach cannot
help you achieve. First of all, if you are tired of letting someone
else dictate your future, you must be willing to make a commitment
to the process of creating the future you want. Although a qualified
executive coach can teach you the skills you'll need to identify work
that truly satisfies your innermost desires, they cannot teach you
personal fortitude, stamina, or determination to make your dreams
become reality. These qualities must all come from you.
By
being prepared for the doubts and the resistance to change that will
inevitably occur during this process, you and your executive coach
can work together to develop strategies to fight these moments of
weakness. But again, the overriding qualities of commitment,
fortitude, stamina and determination represent what you must bring
to the coaching partnership.
So, how do you find the coach that is right for you? First, a coach and
client must be able to successfully communicate what they want and
need in a relationship and find ways to achieve those goals. It requires
honest feedback, flexibility, and a willingness to see more than one
side to an issue. You must also be able to develop a trust in that
coach to offer honest feedback and guidance that will improve your
life and work situation.
So what qualities do you look for in a good executive coach? Here is a list
of ten factors to help you make the coaching choice that's best for
you. A good executive coach:
1. works from the clients' agenda, not his own.
2. believes in you and what you want in life.
3. has strong professional expertise and knowledge.
5. offers candid and challenging feedback
6. provides positive recognition of your accomplishments and unwavering
support.
7. clearly communicates and explains key points to expand your knowledge
and perception.
8. is compassionate to your challenges and struggles in life.
9. listens intuitively for both what is said and left unsaid.
10. focuses on helping you effectively and efficiently realize the future
you desire, rather than collecting future paychecks.
Most importantly, finding and utilizing the expertise of a good executive
coach means you've finally realized you're ready to take action toward
creating the future you have always wanted and truly deserve. Like
the butterfly struggling to emerge from the cocoon you, too, will
spread your wings as and fly.
As an executive coach who has helped thousands of individuals from all walks
of life successfully obtain income-sustaining, life-changing, and
personally-fulfilling work, I believe the foundation to creating the
best coaching partnership is not limited to the aforementioned 10
qualities, but also includes coachable moments; not being afraid to
ask challenging and thought-provoking questions; identifying solutions,
options, and success-limiting obstacles; creating realistic, workable,
successful and implementable action plans; and follow-up support.
If this sounds like the executive coach and client relationship you've been
searching for and would like to learn more about, I encourage to visit
my websites Dream Job Coaching.com and Garfinkle Executive Coaching.com
or call me directly at 510-339-3201.
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