The field of personal and professional coaching has grown rapidly in the past 15 years and, as with most fields and professions that experience this kind of growth, there are many different perspectives on coaching. Here’s a definition that perhaps most people would agree with.
Coaching involves working in a partnership between coach and client(s) to provide structure, guidance and support for clients to:
- Take a complete look at their current state, including their assumptions and perceptions about their work, themselves and/or others;
- Set relevant and realistic goals for themselves, based on their own nature and needs;
- Take relevant and realistic actions toward reaching their goals; and
- Learn by continuing to reflect on their actions and sharing feedback with others along the way.
Coaching can be especially useful to help individuals, groups and organizations to address complex problems and/or achieve significant goals and to do so in a highly individualized fashion, while learning at the same time.
Many people believe that coaching is different than training and might describe training as an expert convey certain subject matter to a student in order for the student to do a current task more effectively. Those people might add that training isn’t as much of a partnership as a coaching relationship. Many might also believe that coaching is different than consulting and might describe consulting as an expert helping another person, team or organization to solve a problem. Others might assert that a good consultant would use skills in training and coaching, depending on the needs of the client.
Many people assert that coaching is a profession, while others assert that it is a field, that is, that coaching has not yet accomplished a standardized approach, code of ethics and credibility to be a profession. This topic in the Library alternatively refers to coaching as a profession and a field.
To learn more about coaching, see these resources:
(This post starts a series about the basics of coaching.)
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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, and Strategic Planning.
Chuck Appleby of Appleby & Associates is a leadership and organization development consultant with over 30 years of management, consulting, and coaching experience. 
Carter McNamara of Authenticity Consulting, LLC, has decades of experience providing group coaching and Action Learning around the world.
Pam Solberg-Tapper is a highly experienced Professional Certified Coach. Her company, Coach for Success, designs, implements and coaches in a variety of leadership and executive programs.