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home » self/personal development » life coaching and personal coaching

coaching

coaching types

Coaching is a widely-used term with various meanings, depending on the situation.

Coaching essentially is a method for helping others to improve, develop, learn new skills, find personal success, achieve aims and to manage life change and personal challenges. Coaching commonly addresses attitudes, behaviours, and knowledge, as well as skills, and can also focus on physical and spiritual development too.

This coaching article focuses on coaching and the coaching role for work, business and personal development - not coaching in sport, which although it overlaps work-related and personal coaching, is distinctly different, especially in the coaching of sports teams.

Coaching is a form of training or teaching, normally involving one-to-one support (a coach and a learner), aimed at helping a person improve, often in a very practical sense, differing from the training and teaching, typically for groups, focused on knowledge transfer and theoretical application.

Coaching ideally helps a person to find their own solutions, rather than prescribing a solution from the coach's viewpoint.

Coaching generally looks forward sigificantly more than it analyses the past.

Many types of personal development can involve coaching, so the term 'coaching' can be found virtually anywhere that people are trained, developed and/or helped towards improving performance, and achieving success and fulfilment.

The wide application of coaching has produced many different coaching terms to indicate the purpose of the coaching concerned, for example 'executive coaching' or 'career coaching'.

Types of coaching can be found in some intensely personal and trusting situations, for example 'doulas' - more commonly called 'birthing coaches' or 'labour coaches' - which is perhaps the most intimate form of coaching imaginable.

Coaching is a big industry. The size and growth of the coaching industry encourages new types of coaching and terminology to arise, much of which is very vague in meaning and requires clarification when encountered.

Examples of more recent coaching terminology and types include:

• confidence coaching
• life purpose coaching
• life change coaching
• parent coaching

 

features of coaching

Usually coaching contains some or all of these features:

1. one-to-one - involving a coach (teacher, trainer, mentor, coach) and learner (student, trainee, sometimes called the 'coachee')
2. on-going and regular - coaching is commonly a continuing arrangement
3. personalised - by the coach for the individual learner
4. enabling - rather than prescriptive or imposed
5. adapted and adaptable - to the changing needs of the learner
6. planned - the coach normally works to a plan or structure
7. model-based - coaching tends to be based on a structured 'proven' tested concept or methodology
8. focused on aims - coaching normally works towards achieving agreed measurable outcomes or targets
9. measured and recorded - by the coach, and/or the learner
10. time-based - coaching sessions, schedules, and outcomes normally are time-bound

Coaching contains many aspects of effective delegation, especially the concept of SMART aims, but coaching tends to be a lot more driven according to individual (learner) needs, rather than the needs of an organization that usually determine delegation.

Coaching is generally unregulated and not subject to formal qualification, although coaching is commonly practised by qualified specialists in various disciplines, for example, NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), Transactional Analysis, hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, and psychology, etc.

Coaching terminology varies and can refer to different types of coaching. There are some big overlaps in the interpretations of different types of coaching, for example:

coaching type	description and common features
life coaching	private/personal often by telephone - coaches are generally self-employed - typically weekly sessions of about 30-60 minutes - focus is on self-fulfilment and life decisions, which generally features career and/or own business development aims - strongly facilitative, not imposed or prescriptive
personal coaching	very broad and vague term - can be same as life/career coaching, or refer to personal coaching within an organization by a coach or manager or mentor - the meaning needs clarifying where you encounter it
career coaching	similar to or the same as life coaching with emphasis on career development
executive coaching	often a service to the executive's employer and paid for by the organization - coaches are self-employed or work for larger providers, for example part of consultancy or training - strong emphasis on leadership, strategy, relationships, politics - executive coaches usually have considerable experience necessary for trust of their clients - fees are usually much higher than in life coaching
business coaching	business coaching can be a type of life coaching, or it could refer to the coaching of business skills within an organization - it's a very vague term and certainly requires clarification if the precise meaning is important to you
fitness coaching	fitness coaching focuses on physical fitness, but may encompass wider wellbeing issues such as diet, exercise, lifestyle, sprituality, etc.

 

 

 

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see also

• Clean Language - David Grove's powerful questioning methodology for therapy, coaching, counselling, etc.
• Life-balance - and work-life balance
• Goal planning and goal-planner tool
• Assertiveness and self-confidence
• Self-belief
• NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)
• Transactional Analysis introduction
• Transactional Analysis modern theory
• Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
• Don Miguel Ruiz - The Four Agreements
• Susan Piver - The Hard Questions
• Cherie Carter-Scott - If Life Is A Game, These Are The Rules
• Motivation
• Inspirational Quotes
• Rudyard Kipling's Poem 'If'

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