Modalities of coaching

Modern coaching originated in the world of sports, when Timothy Gallwey, in the 70s of the 20th century, applied a new methodology to obtain better sports performance. The results were so favorable in sports that Gallwey himself was motivated to introduce it in the business sector to improve teamwork and leadership. The method was adapted to many organizations contributing to their continuous improvement.

Later Thomas J. Leonard adapted business, psychological, philosophical, sports and spiritual concepts to the method to make it applicable to almost all spheres of life. For this reason there are a large number of classifications and types of coaching depending on the different criteria used.

Two of the most commonly used criteria are:

• Depending on the area where it is developed.

• Depending on the model or theoretical current that sustains it.

The main types of coaching that exist depending on the field in which it is developed are the following:

• Sports coaching.

• Business coaching.

• Personal or life coaching.

Sports coaching

Currently, sports coaching is a comprehensive development process that motivates and raises the level of commitment necessary for the athlete, coach and team to gain in self-knowledge, confidence and energy, allowing them to maintain a state of continuous progress.

The sports coach currently uses non-authoritarian strategies and techniques to exercise leadership, which are very effective in improving relationships, cohesion of teams and commitment of athletes to improve results.

Sports coaching contributes in a general way to the athlete's awareness of his state of mind, thoughts and emotions during training and competitions, since they will provoke positive or negative feelings that will influence his behavior, affecting or favoring competitive results.

Business Coaching

Business coaching focuses primarily on the individual, not on the business system, but without a doubt, it significantly improves corporate results. The business coach works on the development of skills in individuals, such as time management skills, productivity, teamwork, leadership, communication, etc.

The business coach is also projected on other aspects of the client's life, because no one can separate work from the rest of the spheres of his or her life.

Business coaching is mainly developed in the following tasks:

• Developing business skills in leaders or managers.

• In the establishment of a coaching management style.

• Performing interventions to improve working relationships.

Stimulation and retention of key employees.

Personal Coaching

Personal coaching focuses mainly on issues of personal growth and development outside the organizational context. Its action is aimed at people who want to achieve personal goals, life objectives, stabilize their sentimental life, improve their health, successfully overcome difficult stages, find meaning in life, etc.

Personal coaching insists on the role of continuous learning in life to acquire knowledge, habits and skills that allow the individual to know himself and others better, in order to outline strategies to overcome obstacles that prevent him from achieving the goals he has set for himself.

Although personal coaching covers the client's life in all its dimensions, some people need to deal more deeply with specific aspects of their lives, such as improving family relationships, their health, their relationship with food, etc., so there are some variants or specialties of personal coaching such as the following:

• Family coaching.

• Health coaching.

• Nutritional coaching.

The main types of coaching that exist according to the model or theoretical current that sustains it are:

• Systemic coaching.

• Ontological coaching.

• Cognitive coaching.

• NLP coaching.

Systemic Coaching

This coaching process considers people as part of a system, i.e., a family, a group of athletes, colleagues in a department, etc. Systemic coaching takes a holistic approach based on the premise that we are all connected to someone in some way; therefore, it considers that we are agents that influence others and are in turn influenced by them, whether we are aware of it or not.

Principles of systemic coaching:

• Helping clients use internal and external resources to stimulate change at different levels. Systemic coaching places great importance on empowering teams and individuals to identify and leverage the resources that exist within their collective, whether human, emotional, economic or intellectual.

• Changes are cumulative in nature. This approach proposes that small transformations add up and result in larger systemic transformations. They do not recommend implementing large-scale changes because they are costly and difficult to implement.

• People's awareness is key for change to occur. People must achieve a deeper understanding of the close relationship between the inner and outer world, in order to make decisions that have a positive impact on all levels.

Ontological Coaching

The ontological coaching process focuses on the growth of the domain of being, through transformational learning, in order to create a new culture that helps to generate in people emotional competencies and new ways of doing, thinking and communicating; freeing them from old beliefs that conditioned or limited their lives.

Principles of ontological coaching:

• To evolve as people and reach new challenges, we must change the point of observation or point of view.

• Language not only allows us to describe reality, but it is also a tool to generate reality. The conversation within the framework of ontological coaching aims to create a new culture.

• New emotional competencies, ways of doing, thinking and communicating must be generated in order to operate with greater creativity, protagonism and pro-activity.

• Communication between the leader and the people who make up his team is fundamental to achieve coordination on the basis of conversations.

Cognitive Coaching

Cognitive behavioral coaching integrates the theoretical concepts and applied strategies of Cognitive Behavioral Psychology, such as rational emotive behavior, solution-focused problem approach and goal-setting theory.

This school of psychology considers that people suffer because of their interpretation of events and not because of the events themselves. They posit that mental and emotional problems are closely related to cognitive processes.

Principles of cognitive coaching:

• There are some disturbing ideas (irrational ideas) that provoke negative emotions such as depression, anxiety, feelings of guilt or fear that interfere with the pursuit and attainment of goals.

• Disturbing ideas give rise to automatic thoughts, which by dint of repeating them we consider to be absolute truths.

• Thoughts affect what we do and how we feel. As there is a chain linking thoughts, emotions and behaviors, thoughts must be modified first, so that they can then provoke positive changes in the other two components.

• The work of the coach should focus on helping people to be aware of their thoughts, to improve their problem-solving skills and to support them in modifying the disturbing ideas that cause stress, interfere with performance and block the achievement of their goals.

Coaching with neurolinguistic programming (nlp)

Coaching with NLP is very effective and practical to achieve personal and professional changes in clients through the use of techniques to organize and program our language, with the purpose of reordering our thoughts, so that our experiences are interpreted in a more convenient way.

Principles of NLP coaching:

• Language and communication are of paramount importance for our emotions, beliefs, behaviors and our own identity.

• Through good language programming, human beings can reorder their thoughts in such a way that experiences can be interpreted in a more convenient way.

• By sharpening the senses and verbal and non-verbal skills, the human being is able to shape his behaviors.

• The three dominant channels of communication between individuals (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) must be addressed to achieve empathy with the client.