*Coaching Basics

To get started please take a minute and think about what you understand with coaching. When you hear coaching, what comes to your mind?

What is coaching?

On the web there was a nice introduction video on coaching that makes it quite clear what coaching is for a start:

So coaching is a very different communication. There “a whole lot of asking and not much telling”.

Professional coaches are

• “focused on you helping you design your future, your goals,
• discerning listeners,
• empathetic,
• creative, intuitive & curious,
• trained in coaching behaviors, competent and
• work with professional standards & ethics.” (SmithLeadershipLLC, 2012).

Settings in Coaching

There are several possible settings in coaching.

(1) One-on-one-coaching

• Individual coaching or personal coaching with one professional coach and one client/coachee.

(2) Coaching of multiple persons

• Group coaching: a professional coach coaching a group of 2 or more persons.
• Team coaching: a professional coach coaching a group of 2 or more persons that are a team within an organization or project.
• Organizational coaching: a professional coach coaching different members of an organization either in groups, teams or individual.
• Peer coaching/ Intervision: Coaching of a group without a professional coach, but with a group members having received training in peer coaching. This format comes originally from supervision and is also called collegial coaching, collegial transfer coaching, collegial counselling etc.

(3) Other settings

• Self-Coaching: Coaching without a professional coach supported by self-coaching material.
• Coaching-based training sessions: Training with elements of coaching.
• Complementary consultancy: Coaching and Training combined, but with a separate trainer for the trainings sessions and a separate coach for the coaching sessions (Dietz & Müller 2012, p. 30; Lippmann 2013, pp. 87)

If any of these coaching settings is delivered though technological modalities it is E-Coaching.

Ethics in Coaching

One of the most important points in coaching, before a coaching process can be started is to be clear and transparent about ethics.
Since coaching is at the moment more and more professionalized there are a lot of associations and the members there engage themselves to keep the ethical standards of their association.

International Coaching Federation (ICF) – Code of Ethics
As example there is the code of ethics by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) to give you an understanding on what is meant by ethics in coaching.

This is very crucial. In peer coaching the whole coaching group needs to engage themselves to keep ethical standards and this has to be discussed in the very beginning.
Think for a moment about what is important to you? Which rules and standards does a group need to provide and keep, to make you feel comfortable with working on your problems? What should be consequences for disregarding the rules?
Please discuss this topic within the EmployID TalkReflect App.

Resources

Dietz, Thomas & Müller, Gabriele (2012). 1.4 Coaching Services. Deutscher Bundesverband Coaching e.V. (German Federal Association for Excecutive Coaching) (Publisher). Guidelines and Recommendations on the Development of Coaching as a Profession. A Compendium Including the Professional Standards of the DBVC. Osnabrück: Steinbacher Druck. Retrieved from: http://www.dbvc.de/fileadmin/user_upload/dokumente/Coaching-Kompendium/DBVC-Kompendium_englisch.pdf (17.04.2014) pp. 29-33

International Coaching Federation (ICF) (2008, December 18). Code of Ethics. Retrieved from http://www.coachfederation.org/about/ethics.aspx?ItemNumber=854&navItemNumber=634

Lippmann, Eric (2013). Coaching. Angewandte Psychologie für die Beratungspraxis. Berlin/ Heidelberg: Springer Verlag.

SmithLeadershipLLC (2012, July 17). What is Coaching? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFx6yKZrzco (YouTube).