The Question on Coaching:  Aren’t leadership coaches just the people we used to call consultants and trainers?

 

The Answer:  It is important to make a distinction between “true professional coaches” and those who have just decided to jump into the growing field of coaching without the preparation needed to give clients a strong coaching experience. The true professional coach will have devoted months or years to learning the skills of modern coaching through training and professional development programs.

   

It is not simply a renaming of old methods and techniques. While well trained coaches may use consulting, advising and training as tools in their kit, their primary tools are skills that make coaching distinct from other approaches. Consultants, trainers and advisors are valuable because they know more than their clients in specific areas of expertise. Coaches are specialists in processes that help people clarify their goals and accelerate towards those goals. Coaches become partners with their clients, and challenge their clients with techniques that promote very time efficient on the job learning and growth. The client doesn’t sit back and absorb a coach’s teachings and advice. They use their own experience, creativity and judgment to find their own version of success with the coach as a partner.  

 

The problem for people hiring coaches in that all kinds of people now call themselves coaches without any specialized preparation for the role. Many have no understanding of the techniques that make coaching unique and powerful. They simply apply their old training, consulting, counseling or advising skills under the coaching banner. That’s unfortunate for their clients who may not know what they are missing.