CTC - Professional development coaching FAQ

What is professional development coaching?
Coaching is a process that results in individuals changing their behaviour to be more aligned with their personal values and beliefs. This results in increased personal motivation and improved performance and effectiveness.

The aim of the CTC professional development coaching programme is to maximise individuals' strengths and talents.

Who works with a coach?
Leaders, managers and professionals use a coach for a variety of reasons. Leaders in senior positions are often isolated in their organisations from getting honest feedback and appraisals. A coach will give constructive and objective comments on how an individual comes across. A coach is independent of the organisation and can act as an impartial and confidential sounding board. Managers and professionals may use a coach because they want to improve their skills or progress within the organisation. An individual may be experiencing difficulties dealing with a particular situation or progressing beyond a certain level and coaching may be used to identify and overcome the blocks.

What exactly are the benefits of coaching?
Some of the benefits of coaching are:

You become more focused, motivated, efficient and productive
A culture true teamwork is fostered
You enhance your ability to motivate others
You create more effective relationships
You set achievable and stretching goals
You adopt more effective decision making strategies
You are inspired to achieve your best
You focus on solutions not problems

What should weI expect from a coach?
A coach helps you to find out what you really want and supports you in working towards those goals. The coach will ask searching questions, give you their honest opinion, suggest assignments and give you challenges. You can expect that the coaching will lead you to insights and new ways of thinking, as well as introducing you to new and different behaviours and skills.

What results will we get from coaching?
Coaching provides results in terms of individual performance: individuals are more effective which leads to increased organisational performance.

Wouldn't training be more effective than coaching?
Coaching does not replace leadership and management development training. Training is about learning new skills whereas coaching is about making maximum use of existing skills. Coaching may lead to the identification of a training need, which can be addressed separately. The ongoing nature of coaching means that it creates greater opportunities for review and evaluation of newly acquired skills. The element of accountability in coaching increases the likelihood of continued utilisation and absorption of new capabilities.

How is coaching different from consulting?
Coaching is a partnership in which you work with your coach to create the coaching relationship that you want. You set the agenda for the coaching and you agree with your coach how he or she can best support you.

The main difference from consulting is that the coach does not give advice in the way that a consultant does. The coach is an expert on the process of change, but not on what the right change is for you. The coach may offer suggestions, but the coach is never the "expert" with the answer that they know to be right. .