How Corporate Coaching Can Benefit a Professional Career

Sometimes you feel like you’re at the top of your professional game, meeting - even exceeding - expectations. You’re fulfilled and highly satisfied with the direction your career is headed. You’re challenged and engaged; your job success comes with great ease.

Other times, you may feel less than thrilled about your professional path. You may have a sense that you’re falling behind; as if the shoes you need to fill are too big - or that you’ve outgrown them. When such discontent befalls you, you’re likely to become disengaged with your work and experience a sense of dissatisfaction with your career’s trajectory.

At that point, it’s important to take action. Time spent in a dissatisfied state can quickly ripple throughout all areas of your life. The symptoms of professional discontent are best addressed as early as possible. These symptoms can present rather vaguely over time as restlessness, boredom, burnout or a general sense of being "stuck," or acutely, with a more dramatic response to a particular challenge or conflict. Regardless of the cause, the path to a revitalized professional life may not be evident to you. Even if it is, you may not have the tools you need to make an action plan to implement the professional changes you desire. Wise professionals know when they need guidance and motivation; working with a career coach can provide the necessary help.

To learn more about career coaching, I spoke with Corporate Coach Carole Cowperthwaite-O’Hagan, Founder/CEO of Coaching Advisors for Executives (CAE INC) in the Chicago area. According to Carole, "Coaching is a relationship with a willing individual in a safe environment, incorporating challenge and accountability which motivates both the coach and "coachee" to achieve extraordinary results." Carole helps professionals with issues such as:

• career challenges
• communication
• organizational issues
• confidence
• personal/professional struggles
• conflict
• leadership

In short, Carole says, "If somebody wants to be their best, having the right coach will help." She emphasizes the word right: "Find a coach to fit YOU - coaching is not a one-size-fits-all relationship." She considers her role as a coach is to help her clients develop the soft skills necessary to meet their professional development goals.

What does a coaching relationship look like? For 95% of Coach Carole’s clients, it’s a relationship that’s explored over the phone. She employs her powers of active listening and questioning to learn her client’s goals and to help them strategize and problem-solve their way to the desired results. Together, they discover what’s working and what shift needs to occur for the necessary changes to come about. She helps them recognize when they’re suffering from a victim mindset and helps them focus on the things over which they can and do exercise control. During their coaching sessions, she seeks coaching moments where she can highlight a mindset or pattern in context to a client. Carole leans into her background in business, utilizing a direct, straight-shooter approach to coaching her clients; she aims to have them invested in their professional growth.

Goal setting is paramount to her coaching process. A client’s goals must be realistic and incremental ones are to be celebrated and built upon. It’s those incremental goals that build confidence and "muscle memory" necessary for professional growth. She underscores the importance of goals by utilizing the S.M.A.R.T goals acronym: Goals should be Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Timed. When goals are conceptualized this way, they become far more actionable and achievable.

Carole makes a clear distinction between coaching and counseling. Unlike a career counselor, it’s not a coach’s place to tell her clients where and how their professional journey should play out; but to support their efforts to achieve their goals. She sees her role as one who nurtures and supports a sense of empowerment in her coachees. Carole says that fear holds people back from seizing bigger, more challenging, potentially more exciting professional pathways - that’s why an empowered client is a successful coachee.

Her ideal clients are those who bring a strong desire to achieve in their careers, who want to, "Go from good to great." They are willing to put in the hard work and be held accountable along the way. Carole says successful coachees are willing to have "skin in the game," that is, a willingness to keep up their end of the bargain, to keep learning and working toward the changes they want to manifest. She is clear that a coaching relationship is a partnership that only works when the coachee participates fully and doesn’t expect the coach to "fix" them. Indeed, among her favorite coaching experiences are the "aha" moments when the coachee connects their own dots.

If you - or an employee - is suffering symptoms of professional dissatisfaction, hiring the right career coach can provide clarity, direction and motivation to make dynamic changes toward a more rewarding work experience.

How could a career coach benefit your professional satisfaction?