When Should You Consider Coaching?

• Transition Focused – Clients who are facing a change (new job, promotion, organizational change, acquisition, new responsibilities, organization restructure, organizational growth, etc.) and would like help, insight, and options with the transition.
• Current Situation Focused – Clients who want to develop a competency, more fulfillment in their current job and/or better work/life balance. Some clients want help identifying and attaining their developmental goals and would like more insight and options concerning their current situations.
• Executive Presence – Clients who want to enhance their executive presence and increase their overall effectiveness. They may want to become more inspirational leaders, improve work team relationships and results, exhibit more confidence in executive settings, and/or sell their ideas more effectively to the Board or C-suite.

Coaching Process

One-on-one coaching engagements are designed to provide the leader with the capacity to produce better results and gain a greater confidence in their ability to do so. The coaching engagement is structured and customized to the needs of each of the identified leaders. The coaching process takes time, as any behavior change does. We support the change process by offering options and encouragement.

A typical coaching process includes the following:

• Establish a mutual understanding and commitment between the leader receiving coaching, the sponsor who has engaged the coach (when applicable) and the coach
• Gather information from the leader through initial intake conversation, competency self-assessment, on-going conversations and other assessments as appropriate
• Define developmental goal(s)
• Integrate strategies through job assignments, ongoing feedback, role models and coaches and training and reading

Coaching engagements with ImpaQ Solutions are a minimum of 6-months in duration and may be extended as agreed upon by the client, sponsor, and coach. One-on-one coaching sessions are conducted during the engagement with each leader. The sessions may be in person or Zoom. Overall coaching engagements with each client may range from six months to two years; ICF estimates the average length being slightly over one year.

Confidentiality is critical to the coaching process. All levels throughout the company must understand and respect that any information communicated between the coach and client, the coach and sponsor, and the coach and client’s manager is strictly confidential.

Types of Coaching

The first step to hiring a coach is to identify the type of coach that you need. People often classify all coaches in a single category; however, each type of coach is trained in and focuses on a specific area. Although there are almost always varying degrees of overlap, coaching at work usually has a different focus and priorities from general life coaching, which is different from coaching to address a specific difficulty or problem area. Below are some of the common coaching areas today:

• Executive Coaching: Executive Coaching concentrates on improving the workplace and individual performance of Executives. Executive Coaching can be geared towards on-boarding the executive during his or her transition into a new environment, guiding the executive through an organizational change, such as a merger or restructuring, training the executive to employ a new skill set, or supporting the executive to create their desired legacy. Executive Coaching can take in the specific dimensions of life at the top of an organization that are pertinent only to people in very senior corporate life.
• Leadership Coaching: Leadership Coaching is similar to Executive Coaching but geared to leaders at all levels in the organization. Leadership Coaching supports leaders as they work to develop particular competencies, or as they move into increasingly influential positions as a result of a new job, promotion, organizational change or restructure, or new responsibilities.
• Business Coaching/Advising: A Business Coach is someone with relevant skills, expertise and experience in the business sector. A Business Coach may help a business owner start or run a small business, during business expansion, or with sales and marketing, logistics and operations, or buying or selling a business.
• Career Coaching: A Career Coach specializes in helping individuals identify their ideal career path, navigate their transition and nurture their career. The focus in Career Coaching is generally on issues such as career exploration, career change, and personal career development.
• Personal/Life Coaching: A Personal/Life coach provides support to individuals wishing to make some form of significant change happen in their lives. The purpose of Personal/Life Coaching is to help individuals identify and achieve personal goals in any area of one’s life (e.g., relationship, health, fitness, spirituality, etc.)

ImpaQ Solutions specializes in individual and team Executive and Leadership Coaching.

Below are steps to help you through the process of selecting a coach for you or your company.

1. Identify the type of coach for which you are looking and seek coaches who specialize or focus in that area.

2. While credentials and training do not guarantee a quality result it is important to identify what are the credentials, accreditations, training, and qualifications of your prospective coach. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the leading global organization dedicated to advancing the coaching profession by setting high professional standards, providing independent certification, and building a network of credentialed coaches. ICF exists to support and advance the coaching profession through programs and standards supported by their members and to be an authoritative source on coaching information and research for the public. 

3. Interview your perspective coach to determine if their background and approach match your needs. Some topics to discuss with your perspective coach include:

• Their approach toward the coaching engagement
• What a “typical” engagement might look like
• Tools, techniques, and models they use

4. References from past clients are highly valuable. Getting the feedback of clients can be an excellent way to assess the effectiveness of the coach. Click here for ImpaQ Solutions’ references.