Origins and influences of coaching?

The subject that will be addressed in this guide is of vital importance when it comes to understanding the fundamentals of the discipline of coaching as a profession. Through a brief approach to the origins of coaching, we can understand what have been the fundamental elements that have allowed to form a more generalized conception about the fields of application of the coach and the preparation that the coach must have in order to provide his services efficiently.

Coaching is a discipline that has many years of formation since its origins, so that to cover each of the methodological schools that have opened debate on the subject would be an extremely complex task, however we intend to outline the most basic aspects that allow us to understand in a general way what are the most marked influences of this important profession.

Origins of coaching

The origins of coaching date back to the analysis carried out by various philosophical schools of antiquity, who began to appreciate and discuss the fundamental elements that revolved around the figure of the counselor or advisor, who brought his experience in various fields to serve as a guide in dealing with problems. The coach evidently had different roles to the current ones and the barriers to entry for the exercise of the profession required an exquisite training that was limited exclusively to people of the highest society.

The term coach, which we use nowadays, has more the connotation of a trainer than that of a counselor. Its name was imported from the United States, more specifically from the sports industry, where a coach is precisely a trainer.

Coaching influences

As mentioned above, the influences of the coaching profession are mostly attributed to the sports industry in the United States, however, before professions such as "life coach" were accepted as normal, there was one that played a very important role. The business coach was perhaps the first adaptation of the sports coach that would be respected and embraced en masse by the business sectors.

A business coach was a figure that was beginning to be seen as necessary, especially for novice entrepreneurs who required the services of more experienced ones to help them with their knowledge when they were going through the hard road of entrepreneurship. The so-called paralegals or legal advisors, were another of the branches that intensified very quickly, these like the business coaches knew how to generate income and form a business around their knowledge and experience they had dealing with certain issues.

The future of coaching

Coaching is constantly evolving and it is easy to predict that the future of the coaching profession is much richer than the present. Today it is possible to provide coaching services in almost any subject, as long as there is a market willing to pay for these services and professionals who are willing to put their knowledge to use for the benefit of others.

The modern educational system is becoming increasingly obsolete, we continue to graduate specialists in different areas who must face a labor market that far exceeds the knowledge acquired theoretically in a school. The coach itself is a school that knows how to link theory and practice to make it converge in a reality that focuses on solving specific problems that can only be addressed from experience.

As the years go by, we will continue to see the arrival of new sectors of coaching, which will make their way into the specialization and identification of the various problems that afflict the labor market.