What is coaching?

Coaching is one of the professions with more fields of application in the world. There are many professional sectors that demand a coach, so this generates a high presence of specialists in various areas who are willing to put their knowledge at the service of others in exchange for remuneration for their work.

During the development of this guide we will be addressing some of the basic issues that revolve around the services of a professional coach, so that you can learn a little more about this important profession and the role it plays in its interrelationship with professionals from other sectors.

The coach and the experience

A coach is a person who advises others, in fields where he has proven experience, making the path of those who seek his services easier, avoiding common mistakes and finding effective solutions to their problems. The coach's value is measured by the previously proven ability to successfully face situations similar to those that must be faced by those who request his services.

The coach's preparation comes fundamentally from two areas, practical experience and theoretical experience. Practical experience is that which is acquired through daily contact with problems of a given type, which allows the coach to put different methods into practice and evaluate their effectiveness over time. Theoretical experience comes from the professional preparation that the coach has received in the field in which he/she works.

Both practical and theoretical experience play a vital role for the client, since thanks to the knowledge that the coach possesses, it is possible to prevent mistakes, accelerate results and find effective solutions to problems.

The coach and communication

The coach must not only master technical aspects related to his field of work, but he has the duty to develop complementary skills that are essential to carry out his professional activity. Among these skills is communication. The coach must be a communicative person, who can develop empathy towards his clients and convey knowledge by the most accurate means.

In general, this profession requires from the person who intends to develop it, a greater social development than in other professions. The exchange with the clients is the central axis of the coach's work, so if one does not work on improving these aspects, it will be difficult to obtain satisfactory results.

The coach does not solve the problem, he/she only shows the way.

When you turn to the services of a coach, it is often expected that the coach can solve the problems without any serious involvement on the part of the client. It is impossible for a coach to obtain an effective solution if the clients are not willing to be sufficiently involved in working on the situations that afflict them. The coach, in his role as advisor or counselor is able to show the most rational ways to reach the final solution, but the duty to walk these paths corresponds only to the client.

When you hire a coach, you pay for his experience and astuteness, not for miraculous solutions or because you expect him to perform actions that can only be executed by the one who suffers the problem. Wanting to get involved beyond what our professional competence allows us to do can be a very serious mistake that can be detrimental to our work performance.

We must be able to establish the limits between what is within our scope of work and what is not.