7 Reasons Why You Should Hire a Coach (6 Mins Read)
Why do you need a coach? A sports coach is someone who helps the athlete to achieve the levels of performance to such a degree which may not have been possible if he/she was left to his/her own endeavours. Similarly, if a coach is there at the workplace, then his or her influence has a profound impact on the professional development of the entire team as well as the individuals working in the team. Most people would like to work under a manager who guides them as a coach would, rather than work under a manager who would only dictate and direct from outside and not focus on the inner learning and development of the individual.
Coaching employees is an extremely important step in developing an internal culture which helps immensely in improving the customer experience. Sometimes, coaching happen all of a sudden when the learning opportunities crop up, but the formal planned coaching sessions provide huge benefits to the employees, who get a chance to ask questions, practice and develop the skills and set the goals against which they can measure their progress over a period of time.
A good coach helps you to identify and focus on what’s important for you and helps in accelerating your success and achieving your goals. You can say that a coach is the most important person who makes your dreams come true with all the invaluable advice, instructions, directions and guidance. Good coaches help in:
- Being a guide towards building the structure, accountability, and support necessary to ensure a sustained commitment from the employees.
- Creating a safe environment where people can perform much better and see themselves more clearly.
- Identifying the gaps between where the client actually is and where the client wants to be.
As a successful sportsperson understands the power of coaching very well, in the same way, the innovative companies also understand that coaching can help the career minded people increase their performance at the workplace. That’s why they invest in coaching their senior leaders and the high potential employees. A coach can be a powerful resource who can help you to come out of your shell, stand out and then take the appropriate actions in order to achieve the things that are truly important for you. When it comes to building your personal brand, your coach can help you to:
- Identify the blind spots: A coach helps you to figure out what you don’t know and can actually make you see the things which you may not be able to see on your own. They would be very honest with you because they are not vested in any specific result. During the coaching sessions you will have a continuous one on one attention from your coach, who is single mindedly committed towards the cause of your success only. The sessions and the coaching relationship will be all about you.
- Be clear and focused on your goals: Your company might be pulling you in one direction and your manager might be giving you some other advice based on some other criteria, but your coach will help you to determine what will actually be important for you and help you to stay focused on that. A coach is brilliant as they have your best interests only in their minds, but your colleagues or managers might often have their own ‘hidden agenda’ within their business relationship. For example, your manager will give you the feedback on your performance but this feedback will be focused on improving your performance only because it relates to the organization’s goals rather than your personal or professional goals.
- Focus on your development: A coach helps you to know the difference between your weaknesses which you must have to fix and those which can be best left as they are. Your coach might ask few tough questions in order to understand the source of your lack of confidence and will make the required strategies for you to either reframe your thinking or to build your confidence. If your goal is to be a confident leader in the organization, then the coach will help you all the way to find out the ‘future you’ and will work with you to create the plan to get there and help you in achieving it finally.
- Be accountable to your plan and goals: A coach helps you to be on the right track and keep moving forward towards new levels of achievement. A coach is like an accountability partner. This accountability might be in the form of the homework assignments or motivation, inspiration and encouragement. In all the coaching sessions your coach will ask you about an update on your progress towards your goals. It can be very easy for you to make all the excuses as to why you did not stick to the plan, but your coach will help you move away from making the excuses as to why the objectives were not met to one of taking the accountability for what was achieved and adjusting the plan to ensure success for you. For a lot of us, having someone to whom we answer to actually motivates us to act in a better way. In this regard, a coach works wonders for you.
- Expand your thinking to gain the competitive edge: A coach can help you to get to your goal much faster than you could do on your own, by helping you differentiate yourself from the pack and advancing your career at a much faster pace. A coach will work on you to reframe your attitude and help to expand your thinking. Most of the challenges we face every day are based on the limitations and fears which we have about ourselves. But, with coaching there will be many questions to actually delve into the reasons of your fears. Understanding correctly from where your fears and limitations are coming from is the key to overcoming them. A coach plays a great role to help you get out of your own way.
- Be happy: As a coach helps you in identifying and aligning your values, in creating the focus and cutting through the clutter, they actually help you in increasing your professional fulfilment and makes you happy. They will provide a tremendous amount of support to you with all the tools, resources and the ways of thinking to achieve your goals, which will bring a lot of happiness and a sense of fulfilment in the long run.
- Acquire the leadership skills: A coach helps in modelling the skills which are valuable for today’s leaders. Once you work with a coach for a while, you start adopting those powerful questioning techniques, which would help you to become a better leader. This is just one of the many ways how you can instil a coaching style into your own leadership approach.
Takeaway: It is extremely important to always remember that your coach will be your biggest supporter and he or she will believe in you and will be very committed to helping you all the way till you reach your goal.
Keeping the above benefits of a coach in mind, you need to talk to your manager or your talent development staff. They might be willing to invest in a coaching program for you if you are a fit case for it. In addition to it, some leadership development programs also come with the coaching components. So, you need to sign up for those. It’s an excellent way to experience coaching. If by any chance, your company doesn’t agree to pay for your coaching, then you should make the investment yourself considering all the importance of a coach. It will surely pay off in clarity, happiness and increased success. You need to think of coaching as an investment, not an expense.