25/09/2024
How Practical Is It to Practice Coaching in the Workplace?
Recently, Coach Kareen conducted a coaching skills workshop for the directors of an international financial institution. The open forum sparked engaging discussions about the practicality of practicing coaching in fast-paced work environments.
Some of the key questions raised were:
♠️ Coaching seems to take a lot of time. How do we make it work in such a fast-paced environment?
♠️ What if they genuinely can't come up with a solution?
♠️ How do you coach someone who doesn't want to be coached?
♠️ How do we balance between being patient to coach and having to deliver results fast?
All of these concerns are valid, and Coach Kareen empathizes with the challenges they present.
When Coach Kareen earned her professional coaching certification, she was working in a multinational media company. Her goal was to apply coaching as a leadership skill. However, upon returning to her team, she realized that leading with a coaching mindset in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment presents unique obstacles.
Coach Kareen experienced the same issues that many of the directors raised. ✅
Coaching as a leader within an organization is vastly different from being a professional coach.
Over the next few years, she experimented with various approaches to integrating coaching into her interactions with her team, peers, and even her boss. Through this, she learned that while theoretical training is valuable, adapting those lessons to the practical realities of the workplace is critical.
Spending an hour coaching an executive is often unrealistic when clients may escalate issues within 30 minutes or when a project is set to launch in just 15 minutes.
Coach Kareen is grateful for her experience applying coaching to leadership in a corporate setting. It allowed her to differentiate what is practical for a leader to implement versus what is best left to a professional coach.
There are distinct roles for internal and external coaches, and understanding these boundaries is key.
By sharing these stories and experiences, Coach Kareen provided the directors with a clearer perspective on how they can incorporate coaching into their leadership while meeting the mandates of their organizations.
Curious to learn more about the difference between leading with coaching and professional coaching?
Coach Kareen is happy to connect and share more.❤
