What Can a Coach Fix?
By Pete Liska https://www.linkedin.com/in/peteliska/
To answer the question, “What can coaching fix?” start by understanding what a coach is and their role. The International Coach Federation (ICF), defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” The ICF goes on to state that the client is the expert in his or her own life.
As taught in coach training, a coach will work with the client to discover and clarify what the clients wishes to achieve. With questions, the coach will encourage the client to move forward, or towards their goal. The coach while asking questions encourages the client to come up with their own solution as well as a strategy to move forward towards their goal or what it is that they wish to achieve. In addition, the coach partners with the client with knowing that the client is responsible and accountable for choices and their way forward.
With the knowledge of what a coach is, the question, “What can a coach fix?” can easily be answered: Nothing. First, the client is whole and capable. Second, the client makes their own choices. A coach partners with the client for moving forward. That is, working with the client, asking questions of the client, serving as the client’s accountability partner. During coaching certification, the coaches experience that the best expert for the client’s way forward is the client. An idea, or way forward from the client has a much greater chance of coming to fruition than having anyone telling the client what and how to move forward. At the Center for Coaching Certification, the Certified Professional Coach program taught me how to empower the client and what questions to ask a client to help them move forward so they achieve their desired goal.
