Personal Coaches for Career Development

In my business I see the career pathways and experiences of many people. And over time I've used that experience to build up an understanding of what kinds of things successful people do to develop their careers.

I've always thought having a great group of mentors is really important. But recently I've run into more and more people who are taking advantage of personal coaching as well. I think that coaching has found a real niche at work for motivated employees in that many find themselves "self-managing" more and more.

Generally in the modern company, the more efficient and effective an employee is at their work the more likely their Manager (if they are competent) will be very hands off in managing them. Mentally this is fine for these types of people - they can handle it. But often it's when they reach a crossroads that they realize they'd benefit from having a dedicated professional to regularly discuss their career, their skills or any other issue whether it be work or personal life.

The benefits include:

• The Coach is a third-party who is only interested in the best result for you.
• The Coach has led people who have similar issues through to a successful result.
• They have a stronger holistic view of you rather than just focusing on your work (this is particularly useful if you feel you lack work/life balance).
• They often have multiple techniques they can bring to the various issues you face.

One of the issues you'll have if you believe you can benefit from a Personal Coach will be finding one that fits with your needs. I think that's a tough problem as you really have to have a rapport with your Coach. They aren't going to be able to give you all the answers without your input so you'll have to be open to sharing a lot in order to get the most out of the time.

I've personally had a Coach for the last year, Kristine Carey of Bill Baren Coaching. Kris is absolutely amazing and I highly recommend her. In particular her ability to provide a variety of solutions is incredible. I've never came away from a conversation feeling like it wasn't beneficial. Obviously, Coaches like Kris have great life experience but I think that professional training is also an important factor.

In my research I noticed a lot of Coaches without any visible professional training. I found that somewhat strange and eventually gave them a miss until I found one who did.  Another important point for me was the offer of a free session. I think the best Coaches will be happy to do a session to discover whether you are a match for each other. I'd be wary about jumping into a big package with any Coach who wasn't willing to talk to you in detail before money changes hands.

If you have a Coach you recommend then make sure you leave their site in the comments. Like many professions word of mouth might be the very best way to find a quality Coach.

Comments

[Andrew Baird]

I've had a business coach for over a year now and it has made a massive difference in my business and my life. Even though it's specifically for my business I find it crosses into my personal life as well, the saying that applies here is "How you do one thing, is how you do everything." If you're putting more effort into your business you'll naturally find that flowing into other areas of your life.

Even though I'm now doing business coaching myself I'm still keeping my coach - in fact I'm considering getting a second one specifically for non business coaching. The coach I use is Brendan Nichols, and I highly recommend him for business coaching. You can get to his website here: http://www.boldurl.com/UZDq8Kdj.

[Steven]

Thanks Andrew, Brendan sounds very effective!