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When we hear that someone needs to be ‘coached’ most of us think of an overly universal term. Coaching, though, is a massive sector with so many sub-styles involved that the term ‘coaching’ without any context is almost worthless. Instead of leaving you constantly searching for some universally applicable style of coaching, let’s take a look at some of the most popular forms of coaching in the world.

Note: This article contains 1,113 words and 1 image, with an estimated read time of 5 minutes.

 

When used correctly, these different styles of coaching play a critical role in self-development. What, though, are the options open to those who wish to be coached?

7 Styles of Coaching

    1. Skills Coaching. Skills coaching is more commonly used for employees who need to improve on their ability to handle a certain task or take on a more specific role in life. If you want to be good at something in particular, then you commonly need a set of skills to make that work. If these skills are lacking, then skills coaching – usually through applied coaching to help you showcase a theoretical understanding of said skill – can make a massive difference to performance. Coaching programmes are usually made to be focused to the person when it comes to skills coaching, maximizing personal progress.
    2. Career Coaching. Careers coaching is a little bit different to what you may expect, and plays a critical role in how someone gets closer to enjoying their career. From looking at concerns and weaknesses within career performance or trajectory, career coaching offers something much more impressive for you to work with in general. The coach will provide regular feedback on the improvement within suitability for that particular career, and it should lead to a more forward thinking individual who is ready to take action to improve how they work. Generally, career coaching is used to help mould someone to fit a particular path.
    3. Business Coaching. Without doubt, business coaching is one of the most impressive elements of the coaching circuit – and one of the most commonly used. Business coaching is all about making a positive change on how someone manages their business. It looks at the personal challenges faced by the organization so that the coach can then help individual(s) make improvements that take place over a significant period of time, this may include; employee and customer engagement, operations, marketing, sales, and finances. Business coaching is also about helping people improve their own personal standpoint as a leader as much as making sure that everyone within the organisation is singing from the same song sheet and seeing eye-to-eye.
    4. Performance Coaching. One of the most commonly visited forms of coaching is that of performance coaching. These coaching styles are all about improving how someone handles their role within the workplace, to help them become more productive, more confident and generally more capable. Used correctly, this can make an immense difference to how someone works. Most of the time, it will be about looking at the theory of the skills needed to do their job right, while ensuring that they can understand their mind-set which potentially affects performance.
    5. Personal Coaching. Sometimes known as life coaching, personal coaching is all about helping someone improve parts of their life that they cannot manage on their own. From becoming more organized to being more punctual, personal coaching is, as the name suggests, personal. It comes down to the strengths and weaknesses of that particular person and what they feel is holding them back from the person that they could be. Most of the time, coaches will work with someone in a more specific manner; listening to the challenges that they are struggling with and help them fulfil their potential.
    6. Executive Coaching. Executive coaching is a hugely effective way to run any business and give its employees the best opportunity possible to begin changing how they perform. A good executive is needed at the top of the business, and they need to understand both management theory and executive application. Working with the most influential and important member of a business, an executive coaching program looks to make sure that the executives can begin passing down the right message. Executive coaching is all about being an outside influence that can come in and show where changes have become important for long-term improvement and engagement.
    7. Team Culture Coaching. Lastly, team culture coaching is usually a business-wide endeavour that looks to help make the entire staff on a team work better. Team culture means agreeing upon and then forming a plan of action that determines what the ideal member of the team brings to the table in terms of performance and overall mind-set. When used right, this kind of applied coaching makes sure that employees can be more personable to one another, to really form a better understanding of teamwork and to help appreciate that, working together, every expected role within the business will become much clearer.

Theory and Applied Coaching

As ever, though, there are two very distinctive methods of coaching – theory, and applied. Theory coaching is, as the name suggests, all about giving people the general idea and theory behind a particular method. For example, someone who is theoretically coached into business coaching can – on paper – do the job asked of them and understands the theory overall.

However, it’s the same as in sports when a team hires the ‘perfect’ manager, or buys the ‘ideal’ player. Within six months, it may just not have worked out and thus the theory that they were ‘made for the job’ is proven to be false. Theoretical coaching has its pros and cons, of course, but applied coaching gives people the chance to actually show if they can do it and more importantly if they can execute the strategies or take action.

Theoretical coaching also shows that you understand the universal usage of something; applied coaching shows that you understand how to deal with a certain scenario. Having said that, an effective coach needs to understand when to be flexible and versatile between the two different methods.

In truth, a mixture of theoretical and applied coaching works best. Whatever kind of coaching you undertake, ensure it fits amicably with your needs and vision.

 

 

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About the author: Kyle Kalloo is the Chief Executive Officer, Business Coach with Change My Life Coaching and Strategic Leader. Through his management training and experience with McDonalds, Famous Players (Paramount) and WestJet, and all of the ongoing learning and development he’s completed, Kyle has refined and perfected skills and processes and is eager to share how to execute them efficiently to help individuals and companies achieve even more of their dreams. 83% of Kyle’s business comes from referrals. https://www.changemylifecoaching.ca and https://strategicleader.ca

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