WHY WE DO THIS

Our Managing Partner and Director, Janine Ahlers, was a guest on the Young Professional Africa podcast about “Feedback and Development.”

Listen more to learn:

• What to do when you receive feedback?
• Why is feedback important?
• How to ask for feedback?
• What is the most significant difficulty in receiving positive feedback?

We invite you to join our short one-day course on Feedback and Development to start growing and developing the people you lead!

The power of Coaching for Development. 

Transforming your future using a Coaching for Development course involves a structured approach towards personal and professional growth. Here’s how this course can significantly impact and shape your future:

1. Personal Growth: The course delves into self-awareness, helping you understand your strengths, weaknesses, values, and beliefs. This awareness enables personal growth, enhancing your confidence and empowering you to make informed decisions aligned with your true self.

2. Professional Advancement: Coaching for Development equips you with vital leadership and coaching skills, enabling you to excel in your professional domain. By understanding coaching methodologies, effective communication, and leadership strategies, you’ll become a more valuable asset in your career.

3. Goal Clarity and Achievement: Through coaching techniques learned in the course, you’ll gain clarity on your goals and create a roadmap to achieve them. Whether personal or professional, this focused approach guides you towards realizing your aspirations.

4. Adaptability and Resilience: The course cultivates adaptability and resilience, allowing you to navigate through changes and challenges with confidence. You learn to manage stress, overcome setbacks, and remain steadfast in dynamic situations.

5. Empowering Others: Beyond personal growth, Coaching for Development empowers you to support and uplift others. You’ll develop the skills to mentor, guide, and motivate individuals, becoming an influential force in their personal and professional growth.

6. Networking and Community: This course offers opportunities to connect with a community of like-minded individuals. Building relationships and connections within this sphere can open doors to collaborations, mentorship, and mutual growth.

What to Expect:

• Discover how coaching can be a driving force in your personal and professional growth.
• Participate in a dynamic Q&A session to address your burning questions.
• Connect with a community of like-minded individuals passionate about self-development and personal transformation.

Click here to register

Imagine what you could accomplish with the power to build capabilities and evoke excellence within only six months.

Have you ever thought that the ability to coach and empower others effectively has become an indispensable skill in the fast-paced world of leadership? Today, successful leaders understand the value of studying coaching and integrating it into their leadership toolkits. Here’s why:

1. Amplify Your Impact: As a leader, your influence extends beyond your abilities. By studying coaching, you learn how to tap into the potential of your team members, inspiring them to reach new heights of excellence.

2. Enhance Communication Skills: Effective communication lies at the heart of leadership. Coaching equips leaders with advanced communication techniques, enabling them to actively listen, ask powerful questions, and provide constructive feedback. These skills foster understanding, build trust, and create an environment where open dialogue and collaboration thrive.

3. Develop High-Performing Teams: Leaders who study coaching understand how to leverage the strengths of each team member, align goals, and facilitate collaboration. They create a continuous learning and growth culture where team members feel supported, challenged, and motivated to achieve their full potential.

4. Adapt to Change and Uncertainty: Leaders must be agile and adaptable in today’s uncertain business landscape. Coaching equips leaders with the skills to navigate change and uncertainty with resilience and resourcefulness. By studying coaching, leaders gain the ability to foster a growth mindset and guide their teams through challenging times.

5. Cultivate Emotional Intelligence: When leaders study coaching, they better understand their emotions and those of others. They learn to navigate interpersonal dynamics, manage conflicts, and inspire trust and respect. Leaders who embody emotional intelligence create a positive work culture and nurture strong relationships, enhancing overall team performance and well-being.

Leaders who embrace coaching as part of their professional development journey gain a competitive edge in today’s complex and interconnected world.

Are you ready to take your leadership to the next level?

Explore the transformative power of Integral coaching and unlock your true leadership potential. Invest in yourself, your team, and your organization by studying coaching with the Centre for Coaching. We invite you to join our internationally accredited “Coaching for Development” course designed for participants to emerge as coach practitioners. 

Find out when our nearest Coaching for Development course starts here.

Speak with our Swiss Academic Director

Schedule a free call with Michele Stoudmann, who will help you explore whether this course is a good fit and what the best way forward might be for you. Calls are about 45 minutes, so you have plenty of time to feel what is right for you. Contact our Programme Manager, Yael Duncan yael.duncan@centreforcoaching.ch, to book a free call.

There is a significant connection between the words you say and your behaviour patterns.

Let’s delve deep into the power of words and how they shape our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

Language is not merely a tool for communication but a vital force in shaping our perceptions, beliefs, and self-concept. Language both reflects and perpetuates cultural norms, values, and identities. For example, repeatedly expressing self-doubt or negative beliefs about ourselves can reinforce those negative aspects and limit our potential. On the other hand, using empowering and affirming language can boost self-confidence and contribute to personal growth.

By changing our conversation patterns and implementing coaching tools such as active listening and asking open questions, we can enhance communication, promote positive relationships, and foster a productive and inclusive work environment.

Here are a few practical applications:

Leaders play a central role in setting the tone for organizational communication. Leaders inspire and motivate employees. They can communicate their vision, values, and expectations through carefully chosen words, fostering trust and engagement among their teams.

Encourage managers and colleagues to use language acknowledging effort, highlighting achievements, and promoting growth. Constructive feedback delivered in a supportive and respectful manner can help individuals grow professionally and foster a culture of continuous improvement.

Language significantly impacts team dynamics. Encouraging effective communication skills, active listening, and fostering an environment where everyone’s voice is heard can promote collaboration and innovation.

Want to learn more coaching tips and tricks?

We created the “Leadership conversations” series for leaders seeking to develop and grow their teams through the proven principles of transformative coaching conversations.

Who is our “Leadership Conversations” series for?

• If you are an Executive, Manager, or Emerging Leader who wants to learn the fundamentals of coaching and how to understand those around you better.

• If you want to learn how to use coaching to provide support, build a common language for coaching, and have better working relationships with others.

• As a powerful addition to managerial skills, this series is designed to show delegates how to achieve different outcomes from those that have been achieved before.

The language patterns we use in everyday life can significantly influence the people we interact with.

Words you say have a profound impact on our physical and mental health. Using affirming, respectful, and engaging words can lead to people feeling seen, heard, and that they matter. Words can give motivation, approval, support, and build strong and healthy relationships.

Using negative or hurtful words can cause emotional pain, create resentment, and erode trust in relationships. For example, using words that belittle or insult a partner can cause them to feel disrespected and undervalued, leading to hurt and resentment. Using aggressive or confrontational language can lead to conflicts and arguments that can cause further damage to relationships.

As we spend a large part of our time at work, it is important to have healthy and respectful team relations to bring the results we aim for.

Now stop and answer the following questions:

• Do we have good team relationships at work?

• Can I rely on my team?

• Do our team meetings and conversations bring results, not chaos?

If your team relations need improvement, we invite you to join our “Leading with a Coaching Style” series. The Centre for Coaching’s Leading with a Coaching Style series is designed to support leaders in developing their leadership conversation skills. We created six individual short courses to enable executives, HRs, and leaders to build trust, align and delegate, give and receive feedback and hold all conversations that matter holistically, amplifying the capacity to resolve the complex issues and challenges we face.

We start on 21.06.2023 with a “Leader as Coach” workshop where you can learn how to coach and inspire others as a leader in 2 days.

Until recently, coaching was considered a one-on-one practice primarily. But no matter how effective employees are on their own, they can only contribute to the real power of the collective if their managers provide them with coaching individually and collectively.

In applying coaching as a team, team members are encouraged to go beyond their roles and understand one another’s strengths, weaknesses, and aspirations.

Team members are encouraged to build stronger relationships among themselves, not just one-on-one with their manager.

Team members are also challenged to hone their collaboration skills and collectively take ownership of and solve business challenges together while addressing any team-related issues that may arise.

The approach creates an environment of agency and accountability, with a healthy balance between challenge and support.

Building a successful career isn’t something that happens by accident. It comes from a deliberate plan that includes goal setting, expert guidance, and continuing to improve your skills.

There may have been times in your career when you felt it was time to leave a position, but you stayed, finding many reasons to do so while not improving anything. Now it is time to take charge of your career development and personal growth.

Follow these seven steps for effective career development and a more fulfilling work life:

1. Create a career plan
Start with reflecting on what brings you meaning and purpose. Whom do you want to be? What impact would you like to have on the world? Once you have an idea of this, then reflect on where you want to be in your career a year from now. Five years? Defining your goals clearly, aligned with your bigger picture, will help you select the right way to move. Don’t be afraid to think big and dream! If you want to own a boutique hotel or be the regional manager of a major restaurant chain, write it down.

2. Find out your strengths and weaknesses and accept them
Write down the list of your strengths and points of improvement influencing your career development. Ask 3-5 people that you trust and respect what they see as your strengths. You may discover some new ones and identify patterns. This will help you to find out which skills to leverage and which ones need to be improved.

3. Continue to develop the skills needed for your career
Take upskilling courses and complete areas needing development to attain your goals in the context of your bigger picture (how is what I might learn going to serve/contribute to my future). Learning should be an ongoing process if you’re looking to advance your career.

4. Find a coach who can support you in moving towards your goals in the best possible way 

Who can help you with any of steps 1, 2 or 3 if you are feeling stuck or need help figuring out where to start? Even if your manager plays an active role in helping you with career development, having a coach outside your direct line can further enhance your career progress. Their support and guidance can provide valuable perspective. Think of them as a source of insight and inspiration.

5. Take on more responsibility
Stretching yourself is the best way to prove that you’re ready for the next step in your career. This means stepping outside of your comfort zone and looking for more responsibility, as long as it’s aligned with your bigger picture. You can gain knowledge, hone your skills, and connect with people who might not otherwise cross your path.

6. Use the power of networking
The power of networking is immense and could lead to job opportunities or discussions that could take your career on an upward trajectory. Connecting with like-minded people, initiating interactions, and making yourself accessible will help nurture meaningful relationships and grow your network. But before you make a move, remember that networking should always be two-sided. Always have something on your plate to offer and think about how you might be willing to support or help others you meet. Here’s a helpful resource – networking cheat sheet – to help you get the most out of your networking.

7. Follow a personal development programme, such as our Coaching for Development course.
Coaching for Development (CfD) is a six-month intensive course in the application of the principles of an Integral approach to coaching. Participants develop a deeper awareness of their own development needs while learning how to evoke excellence in others. During the course, you will also receive support from your fellow students and mentor coaches as you engage in your assignments and coaching practice, thereby gaining clarity as to what direction you really want to take in your career and in life.

The steps above were developed in collaboration with Mandy Bronsil, founder of B-inspired.ch – take control of your career and thrive.

Making the decision to become a coach can be life-changing. Not only for yourself but for those you care about and interact with. 

1. Becoming a coach you can offer so much to others and make the world better from a place of wisdom, maturity, and experience.
2. You can fulfill your aim to help others as a coach to build confidence and capabilities, to grow personally, and improve people`s performance.
3. You will evoke excellence in yourself and in others. Your outlook will change, and you will be able to see this world through someone else’s eyes.
4. Becoming a qualified coach, you will also have the opportunity of building a coaching practice, coaching people when and where you want to.
5. You will learn to bring your whole self to life through the power of Integral Coaching. The integral approach explores all the constitutive elements of being human: spiritual; cognitive; emotional; relational, and somatic, allowing everyone to uncover their ability to continuously awaken and deepen so that life flourishes and is saturated with meaning, belonging, and contribution.

What possibilities might you be able to unleash by supporting others to become unstuck from the assumptions that have locked them into engaging with their world in certain ways, releasing them to explore new and different ways of encountering their lives?

Daniel Ahlers, Managing Partner & Director of the Centre for Coaching Switzerland

Coaching has become a clichéd word in social and management practice. It functions as an umbrella phrase that is used to describe processes as dissimilar as managing the strategy and implementation of the Saturday game-plan of sporting teams to the casual words of advice offered in the corridor to a colleague struggling with some dilemma.

In reality, coaching has become a strongly applied and researched process in the corporate context, with a track-record of twenty years in more developed economies. It has also developed a range of exponents, theories, and schools that say and mean very different things when they use the term. Some exploration here is necessary to frame which stance this article departs from.

All too often the term is used as a bucket to embrace any kind of advice given in a friendly and constructive manner. This damages coaching and leaves people with the illusion that simply by changing their tone of voice and their manner, things once seen as giving suggestions, answers, input and perspective, and even manipulation are now coaching.

A coach is absolutely not:

• Simply an accountability partner who supports someone to reach their goals

• A disciplinarian who changes someone’s unwanted actions

• A cheerleader who supports from the side

• A devil’s advocate who asks different questions or takes an alternative point of view,
  simply for the point of debate

There are terms already for these roles – inspector, teacher, supporter, and sounding board. Why bother using the obsolete term of coach to rename existing roles played very necessarily and successfully in organizations and life? To be crass, if you want solutions – call a consultant; if you want answers – seek out a sage; and if you are desperate for advice – speak to a minister.

“Coaching in Leadership Development”

By

Janine Ahlers

Academic Director of Centre for Coaching
Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business
New Ventures West Senior Faculty Member

&

Craig O’Flaherty
Director – Centre for Coaching