Who is a Coach?

If you were to ask different people what their understanding of the term ‘coaching’ is, you would get different answers such as training, tutoring, teaching or instructing. However, in the field of professional ‘solution-based coaching’, it has a deeper meaning. It involves partnering with people to fully realize and maximize their potential. This is done through a process where they can discover their own insights and solutions, while the coach supports them in increased productivity, creativity and effectiveness.

Some key differences between coaching and other commonly used terms such as training, mentoring, counselling are:

• Unlike training & mentoring, coaching is more about ‘asking’ powerful questions, rather than ‘telling’. Good coaches believe that the person being coached is fully resourceful and has the best answers to his/ her own dilemmas/ questions.
• Unlike therapy, coaching focuses on solutionsand is future based, rather than looking at problems and their reasons in the past. It is therefore, more action oriented.
• Another key point is that the agenda for learning is set by the person being coached, rather than by the coach (unlike training, where the agenda could be set by someone else).

Professional coaching can support an organization in building its Leadership Pipeline and can transform managers to leaders.