Coach Development

I listened to a radio programme the other day about “professional depression,” this caught my attention and I stayed tuned… The programme’s key message was that peoples’ professional lives are increasingly leading to depression. Several examples were shared where professionals are working in organisations and/or environments that lead to significant emotional and psychological disharmony. This can be described as cognitive dissonance, where a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviours produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to an alteration of one’s own attitudes, beliefs or behaviours to reduce the discomfort and restore balance. Alternatively, we might create a form ...

My philosophy of coach supervision can best be explained using the analogy of advanced driver training. Once we’ve obtained our driver’s license (we’ve taken lessons and passed the test), we can go many years without ever having our driving examined. That is, of course, unless we (knowingly or unknowingly) break the law. Advanced training allows drivers to improve, update and check in on how their driving is doing. It also allows them to answer the following questions: Have I become a bit lazy? Am I familiar with the latest highway code? Do I know when I may be breaking the ...

How many times do we hear that coaching is a ‘soft’ skill? Indeed, many personal development training is often categorized as ‘soft’ skills. If you dig deeper into those ‘soft’ skills, many of them are about people. People’s interactions with others and people’s interactions with themselves. Yet ask managers or any leader what is the most challenging part of their role, and the answer is often—dealing with others! When looking at some definitions and distinctions between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ skills, it seems that ‘hard skills’ are often defined as those which are specific, teachable abilities that can be defined, measured ...