SO3 – Readiness for coaching

Academics have shared how and where coaching has been helpful in their coaching relationships. We encourage you to reflect on their experiences as you think about your own readiness for coaching, to help you to think through what you really want from it and how it will add value to your career development.

Conversation starters:

What is the context in which I am operating?
Who does my work serve? Who are my stakeholders?
What do my stakeholders value about me?
What do my stakeholders need me to step up to?
What might change in the future that my stakeholders will need me to be ready for?
Where is my learning edge? What do I need to work on?
Why do I want to work with a coach?
What do I need from a coach?
How would I like to work with the coach? How would we spend our time together?
How will we know that the time together has been good value?
What would good look like?

What academics told us:

Here are some examples of what our participants shared about their experience of being a coach, being coached, or organising coaching. Coaching can be:

Developmental

Coachee centric, the coachee sets the agenda; creating value with the coach depends on who you are and what you want out of it ‘it depends on me’; self-examination; future focus; taking next steps.

Directive

With the coach pushing; tougher [than mentoring]; more proactive; about goals and outputs.

Non-directive

A protected space to work things through and think about direction; not about advice, the coach doesn’t need specialist knowledge of the situation; facilitates thinking; challenges and supports; facilitative, reliant on the individual coming to their own conclusions; with a therapeutic element; guiding rather than telling; asking good questions; non-judgemental; empathic; teasing out; helping the individual find their own journey, their learning path; yet focused on action between sessions.

Where coaching is used

To support: performance; 360 Degree Feedback; for development; peer coaching; developing skills for ‘manager as coach’; leaders as part of a leadership programme; newly appointed senior staff; research; learning and teaching; students; if you want to be better at something.

Length and frequency

Varies depending on the programme and purpose.

How coaching helps

When working on a burning issue; in support of a trigger; to build confidence; to develop assertiveness; to improve leadership; providing headspace; reflecting on practice and action; working with my responses to things that have happened; a sounding board; raising self- awareness; recognising my strengths; working with learning edge; space to experiment; brings fresh eyes to an issue; helps me to grow my own coaching skills; provides affirmation; setting goals; exploring ambition; preparing for application for promotion, or progression.

Career coaching

Exploring balance of activities; how to progress; feedback following recruitment; decisions on whether to move on; coaching for women and careers.

Examples of who has accessed coaching

ECRs; doctoral students; junior staff; Associate Lecturer; Associate Head of School; managers; leaders; newly appointed senior staff; professor; programme participants.