Dear Career Coach

Our company has recently introduced a coaching programme for senior managers and we have been encouraged to take part. I am a bit worried about sharing information with someone who is being paid by the company and, to be honest, I’m also rather sceptical about the point of the whole thing. As you are a coach, perhaps you can explain why having one will be beneficial for me and for my career?

Even the best of us needs support to be better at what we do, and coaching is one of a number of training and development interventions that organisations can use to help individuals to develop their skills and knowledge, so that their job performance improves.

Coaches have always played an important role and top athletes employ coaches to help them improve on their natural talent. The use of coaching techniques in business and career development has received much more visibility in recent years and many forward thinking organisations rightly see coaching programmes as a means to provide an objective source of support to assist their employees to successfully pursue both their own goals and the organisation’s vision.

A good professional coach can work with you to enhance your performance at work and give you feedback on both your strengths and your weaknesses. A coaching programme usually lasts for a period and focuses on specific skills and goals.

As a senior manager, you may be wondering how coaching would specifically benefit you – after all, you have done pretty well so far, right?

Professional coaching can bring even more competence to the way you operate and the level of success you can achieve at work. Working closely with a coach can help you improve your communication skills, for example, a critical competence in effective management and for senior leadership roles.

If, for instance, your role or your organisation is going through a period of transformation or change, having a coach can help you navigate the transition, both from a technical and organisational culture perspective.

If, say, your role involves working with multiple stakeholders and employing persuasion and negotiation skills to achieve your objectives, a good coach can help you assess your capabilities and develop strategies to strengthen these skills and to avoid sabotaging your own success.

People who have received coaching often cite the benefits of the experience as having improved their productivity and the quality of their work, increased their self-awareness and their ability to build rapport and better understand others, seeing things from a different perspective and being open to different possibilities. Other benefits coaching brings includes improving teamwork and relationships, handling conflict situations more effectively, and better developing leadership presence and personal branding.

These benefits help people to feel more highly motivated and committed to their roles – and to the organisations that provide this support.  So, instead of being sceptical about what someone else can do to help you to up your game, keep an open mind about the positive benefits a coach could bring you.

Just take a minute to imagine what today’s top flight players and athletes would be like without their coaches.  Any of them will tell you that their coaches have helped them to analyse their game - and their opponents’ games - and to develop strategies and the mindset needed to be a winner.

Do you fancy the idea of being the Roger Federer equivalent of what you do for a living? Helping you move from good to great is what a professional coach can do for your career.

All the best!