Executive coaching is a relatively young professional practice that is still shaping your identity. In this search for identity, those who carry it out continue to analyze the scope - and limits - of their profession and discover that there is a very delicate aspect of their work: the client.
Coaching in the workplace involves walking a very thin line between the person's needs and desires and the results sought by the organization. Should the coach help the person or the organization?
Contrary to what many think, the task of a coach is not that of a therapist or a psychologist, although many are by profession. Coaching is not therapy (although sometimes it resolves conflicts). These are professionals who help people to get to know each other better and make the most of themselves.
Why, then, does a company invest in coaching? Can't employees solve their personal problems at home, in a church, with their analyst, or in a personal development course? The justification for this investment is given by the improvement in performance that is achieved, which in turn causes a favorable impact on the company.
One of the principles of coaching validates this argument: people perform better when they act in harmony with their true wishes. The best performing companies are those that support the development of their personnel. And, as a return on this investment, employees build a better workplace.
More and more companies see people as the main resource and seek to empower them to work more effectively. However, coaching goes further and adds other ingredients to the development initiative: a person's work life is more effective if he puts his goals, dreams and values into action, both at work and in the rest of his life..
The most important aspect of the coach's task is to increase a person's intelligence, control and responsibility over their own life and to release the expression of their talents and strengths. The core of this work is that the client achieves greater consistency and integrity between her work and personal life.
Each person is immersed in two contexts, work and non-work, determined by a set of particular relationships. This "double dimension" often causes a coach to face a conflicting doubt: is the character of the employee shaped by her workplace? Or is it the workplace that is shaped by the character of the employee? Precisely, the interaction between the individual and the system is the dynamic that the coach tries to improve.
The mission of organizational coaching is, precisely, to align the personal search for individual freedom, quality relationships and significant purposes, with business imperatives such as teamwork, shared mission, creativity and flexibility. To the question «the person or the organization? »The coach responds: both !!!
Organizations today can no longer be led by the tireless "workaholics," who were yesterday's executives. "Fully human" people are needed to unlock the potential of more entrepreneurial, more democratic and more learning-oriented organizations. In fact, the exponential increase that organizational productivity and innovation are having, rests on the convergence of personal development and organizational development.
People need to be successful and happy in their lives, inside and outside of work: only in this way can they develop as Beings: "Human". The challenge of coaching is to find new ways to inspire them to work more effectively, respecting their freedom and right to direct and expand their own destiny.
