What does coaching involve?
Coaching is about partnering with you in a thought-provoking and creative process, inspiring you to maximise your personal and professional potential. The process of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity and leadership. We all have goals we want to reach, challenges we’re striving to overcome and times when we feel stuck. Through observation, questioning, listening and feedback, a coach will create a conversation rich in insight.
Coaching is often mixed up with mentoring, and although both are future-focused, it is worth knowing there are some distinct differences.
What can coaching help me with?
Your coaching experience will be unique to you, and depend on your own personal goals and ambitions. To give you an idea of how others at the University have benefited from coaching over the last year, here are some of the themes coming through:
- Leading strategically
- Personal impact and influence
- Building confidence and resilience
- Relationship management
- Self-leadership
- Developing company culture
- Leading a new team or project
The feedback so far has been positive, with colleagues reporting the coaching incredible helpful. One anonymous colleague in the University Secretary Group reported: “We are a very small team and during the pandemic we have worked together to make working from home a success. Instead of taking everything on myself to protect my team during peak periods, coaching has helped me to come up with new ideas about managing my workload and encouraged me to take the time to train others. Making time for this benefits everyone in the long term.”
Niall Bradley, Deputy Director of Communications and Marketing, has also found it helpful managing a larger team too: “Coaching has helped me to work more strategically. Through discussion and focusing on what I could control and influence, we developed a really helpful spider diagram to highlight my new areas of focus. The best thing about coaching is that it offers protected thinking time during a busy working week. The standout learning for me was around recognising that I don’t need to know everything! By listening to others and delegating more I am able to free up more of my time.”
I’d like a coach, what are my next steps?
The first step is to register with Know you More, a digital coaching programme offered through the Learning and Organisation Development team in HR. On the portal you will be asked to create a profile, describe what you would like to get out of coaching and complete some self-assessment questions. The cost of coaching is cross-charged back to your team or School, so you will need the name of your budget authoriser.
For more details on this, visit the coaching page.
Once Know you More assign you a match – usually within 24 to 48 hours – your coach will contact you to arrange your first session. More information is in the Know you More FAQ’s.
Maybe I need a mentor?
If you have read this and think mentoring might be a better option, you can find out more about Mentoring Connections on the HR website.
If you are interested in how leaders can positively impact hybrid-working, have a look at Sue Gammon’s latest article on the Know You More website. Sue talks about team dynamics, ongoing conversations and shares some prompts on how to explore the topic in team meetings.
More information can be found on the Coaching webpage and FAQ document.
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