CHAPTER
23

Output 3: Your Professional Development Plan

THE THIRD OUTPUT OF YOUR PERSONAL MODEL IS A DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR YOURSELF AS COACH. THIS PLAN TAPS INTO THE STRENGTHS AND GAPS OF BOTH YOUR APPROACH TO COACHING AND YOUR PRACTICE PLAN FOR GETTING more coaching work. Addressing your areas for growth strengthens your approach and potentially increases your effectiveness in the marketplace.

Every coach should have a personal agenda for becoming a better coach. Below are developmental ideas from other coaches’ Personal Models that reflect their awareness of competencies that need to be developed. They tend to be more interpersonal and emotional competencies than cognitive ones.

I need to upgrade my listening and communication skills in order to be an effective coach. I need to be able to listen without jumping in with advice. Similarly, I need to really consider what a client is saying, without judgment or forming an immediate opinion.

As a coach, I need a much more reflective, calmer style than in my usual roles.

I need to have a stronger presence with those leaders who have big egos. Whether clients or managers, they tend to dominate conversation and put me into a passive mode. I need to have strategies for holding my own with them and leveraging my point of view.

To be a more effective and versatile coach, I need to remain sharp and present when I am tired or distracted. I tend to move into my comfort zone of consulting and advising.

A challenge I have is to become more comfortable with silence and giving the client time to really think about what we are discussing.

There are skills, knowledge, and abilities that may benefit your coaching practice as well, as expressed in these sample statements:

My plan for ongoing development as a coach includes learning more about positive psychology, exploring the topic of psychological loss, and becoming certified in an emotional intelligence instrument and a 360-degree feedback tool.

I need to understand more concepts about leadership and management so that I can listen actively and respond with substantive ideas, yet stay away from providing answers.

My development plan includes learning more about theoretical models such as appreciative inquiry. Also, I want to get experience with cross-cultural coaching by securing an international client.

I will become certified in several of the psychological and interpersonal-style assessment techniques that are often used in coaching engagements.

All coaches have their own preferred way of learning. These methods might include study, courses, peer learning groups, or an arrangement with a case supervisor. Here are some practicing coaches’ reflections on their learning methods:

Every engagement holds the potential for learning. I have used journaling to make my reflections more productive. I will continue to journal, but in future cases, I will target my journaling on several key questions aimed at each coaching assignment: What am I learning about myself? What feels risky with this client and what should I do about it? What needs to happen so that the balance of responsibility is tipped toward the client? What about this client is unclear and what can I do about it? To what extent am I modeling what we are talking about?

My meditative discipline outside of sessions is an important contributor to being less reactive and more present during sessions. I would also like to identify a set of mindfulness exercises to use before I meet with clients.

Since I learn best by doing, I will use my coaching work to be my teacher. It will take a disciplined approach to reflection, which I plan to do in three contexts: on my own, after each session, and at milestones; with a peer-coach support group of three to four colleagues; and with a more senior case supervisor, on more complex cases or when I feel stuck.

The following questions are designed to help you consider your own future learning:

Reflecting back on your current experience, what areas of coaching would you like to improve?

What personal or professional characteristics would you like to address because they hold you back as a coach?

What can you do to expand your interpersonal range with clients?

What types of clients do you find most difficult or challenging?

How can you learn to work more confidently with a wider range of clients?

Building on your practice plan, what personal strengths can you build on?

As you consider approaching the groups, business sectors, and types of organizations that you would like to work with, what hurdles might you want to overcome?

What might you do to expand your repertoire of coaching methods?

How would you assess your listening skills, and what about them do you want to further leverage?

What questions do you have about theories, principles, or concepts that are linked with coaching?

What models, approaches, or coaching techniques (Part II of this book) do you want to learn more about, and how might you experiment with them?

What personal development areas may hold you back from being the coach you envision?

How might you work on your own personal growth as you do coaching?

What learning resources might you access to further your professional development (e.g., case supervision, support or professional learning groups, tutorials), and how will you contract them?

What challenges do you face as an internal coach in terms of time, boundaries, senior leader support, program definition, case supervision, and continued investment in your growth as a coach?

How might you address and get support in addressing internal coach challenges?

As you develop as an executive coach, you will find that your approach expands and becomes more robust. At the same time, working on your development plan will enhance your presence in the marketplace and add to the overt skills needed for coaching assignments. As with the rest of your Personal Model, it is meant to be fluid and changeable as you grow and gain more experience. Even senior coaches maintain development plans, although with less of a focus on skill areas and more attention given to theories or new approaches. Most important, your development plan links you with your clients’ struggles to learn and grow so that you can better identify with their experiences during coaching.