When should you engage a coach? This is a question that I’ve been thinking about for a couple of months.
I’m now in my fourth year of coaching and I’ve worked with more than 150 individuals. So I’ve learned quite a bit about the efficacy of coaching. As it turns out, there are circumstances when engaging a coach can be a particularly impactful choice.
Six Situations
Based on my experience, these are the six situations where coaching can be highly beneficial and even deliver transformational outcomes.
- You’re new to a company. Successfully navigating a new culture in a new role requires self-awareness, an understanding of the norms of the new environment, and potential adjustments to well developed and less developed skills.
- You’re transitioning to a team leadership role. As an individual contributor, you focused primarily on individual development and performance. As a team leader, you are responsible for creating the strategies that align your team to business goals and integrate their interests and efforts.
- You’re exposed to significant company-wide changes. Reorganizations, mergers, new strategic directions, and other disruptive changes challenge every individual, particularly those with people leadership responsibility.
- You want to advance more quickly in your career. More impact, more responsibility, more monetary rewards, and other changes that can lead to more motivation and personal fulfillment.
- You’re dealing with unhealthy cross-functional conflict. While every functional area is expected to align with collective business objectives and goals, there’s often unhealthy tension between functional areas.
- You want to explore a career change. We change. The external environment changes. Sometimes this leads to a desire for a new career direction.
Your Readiness
While these are six powerful reasons to consider engaging a coach, it’s important for you to remember that you need to be ready to commit to a coaching relationship and find a coach you feel comfortable with.
Happy to Talk
If you find yourself in one of these situations and you’d like to explore coaching with Mach10 Career & Leadership coaching, please schedule an appointment using this link or send me an email at dehrenthal@mach10career.com.