Coaching vs. Consulting

What is Coaching?

Coaches believe their clients are creative, resourceful, and whole. This is a foundational principle of organizations like the International Coach Federation, originating from the work of psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1960s. But what does that mean in practice?

Working with a coach is like hiring a professional decision facilitator. They aren't telling you what to do or making the choices for you as much as they are working with you to see and reflect back to you what you perhaps are and aren't seeing. A coach can help show you or help you experience the things that are hiding in your blind spots and expand the lens through which you see and feel/experience things to get more perspective–a fuller picture. With this new context, you can use your skills to make different, more informed choices in line with who you already are. 

With a greater sense of understanding comes clarity and courage. Partnering with a coach, you give yourself a hand–you invite someone in to navigate the unknown with you, so you aren't doing it alone. Over time, you'll gain a growing sense of awareness, power, and confidence in yourself, the new landscape, and your decision-making abilities.

Some people end there, while others continue working with a coach for years to come as they discover new possibilities - like having a sidekick and trusted support they can rely on.

What is Executive Coaching?

An executive coach has experience and education in leadership and business scenarios. They can help shed light on situations that come up for business owners, executives, and those in senior leadership positions. This can be in the corporate world and for entrepreneurs growing their teams and businesses.

In a corporate setting, as high performers advance into management and senior leadership positions, their responsibilities shift. They quickly discover that leadership philosophy is not always straightforward when it comes time to implement it in reality. Leaders benefit from a thinking partner to help them interpret and act on their leadership beliefs and principles in real-life scenarios. Again, in executive coaching, the coach is not answering the question of what to do, but guiding the leader to find their own answer. Their best next step.

Often, those starting or leading their own companies struggle with being owner-operators and moving out of the doing part of the business squarely into a leadership role, later stepping out altogether so they can sell and hand over the sustainable business they built. Executive coaching can be a much needed support to keep them focused on the end goal during this transition.

As a leader, it's not just about doing the work but casting and communicating the vision and chosen strategy for the team to achieve the business goals. They set the cadence of the business. They have to learn to leverage their time through hiring talent and design repeatable processes that can be executed by others. Clear communication and consistency build trust with team members and clients, and are critical to scaling successfully.

What is Transformational Coaching?

If you look at coaching as being on the same continuum as counseling, mentorship, and apprenticeship - with counseling at one end (client-led) and mentorship and apprenticeship at the other (client-following their mentor/apprentice's guidance), coaching falls somewhere in the middle. 

While some Executive coaching falls more towards the mentorship end of the spectrum (as related knowledge and tools can be useful), Transformational Coaching lands more towards the other end, closer to client-led work. 

A Transformational Coach will stay curious, unbiased, and reflective. They can show up intentionally naive, to some extent, to their own experience and education. Instead, they will offer what they see as a reflection of the client's expression, often questioning their interpretations of things while offering them to you, the client, for consideration. 

The transformational coaching process leaves a lot of white space for the client to move around and explore what is in their mind - underlying beliefs, thoughts, and perspectives, making it easier for them to shift the way they see things for themselves, to some extent unguided and uninfluenced by another lens. We get enough advice and perspective from others within our daily lives, so Transformational Coaching offers the client the reflective space to find their own way. The reflective experience is enhanced by a coach asking questions of the client they may have never thought to ask themselves or have been afraid to answer, due to their own fears, biases, or blind spots.

A coach is not licensed as a therapist or counselor. Though things will come up from the past, the goal of coaching is not to spend our time there in the space of what happened in the past and why the client has the beliefs and mental constructs they have today. It's to acknowledge them (broaden the scope of awareness of what might be holding us back), respect them, and come back to the present to navigate the next steps based on this new information and perspective. Though healing can occur in transformational coaching, and there is space for that work, there will also be times when you and your coach discover that there could be more work to be done with the support of a trained therapist. 

What is Consulting?

Consulting offers specific tools, organizational frameworks, processes, skills, expertise, and advice. The consultant brings years of practical experience and education that they can help apply to the client's business. 

In my business, I ask questions about yours in order to see the whole picture—the past, present, and future. Together, we identify major pain points and prioritize which areas to optimize based on factors such as goals, time, and financial ROI. We then work together to outline, test, and document the new processes, often creating assets such as marketing and communications pieces, operations manuals, etc. This part of my work with clients usually results in more tangible deliverables and increased revenue. (Though that can also be true for coaching, it is not always the goal.)

What is Facilitation?

Facilitation is a structured conversation with a group designed to promote divergent and then convergent thinking. The idea is to be purposeful and creative. To leave with new perspectives, understanding, ideas, and strategic action items that you may not have thought of before or know how to implement. When done effectively, this group setting can be expressive, fun, and offer relationships and connections that can be relied upon long past the initial session.

Questions for Reflection:

• Brené Brown said in a Dare to Lead episode - Leaders are the only people in the world where high performance is expected and a coach is not normative. What are your thoughts about this?
• Who has been your most trusted partner while navigating your leadership journey?
• What, if anything, stops you from investing in hiring a partner for your own growth?

Interested to learn more about what mix of coaching or consulting is best for you? Let's schedule a time to chat.

Photo by Bret Lama on Unsplash