Not too long ago I wrote about career coaching in a recession. Now, things have changed a bit and I am revisiting some great coaching resources. Also, I should expand on the time line on when the coaching in a recession is most useful.

The question if you are in a situation, like I was many years ago, where you thought that nothing would move forward and your whole life is in shambles, you decide to coach yourself. Similar to Baron von Muenchausen who pulled himself out of the swamp.

Ideally I have some partner coaches I work with at cb consulting but sometimes, for smaller things, and my own dream fulfillment, I work with myself a lot. You need to be your own coach and chose mentors to work with.

As a coach you are always a leader at the same time. Leadership consists of skill, knowledge and being able to provide examples. You just cannot coach people without identifying their problems, knowing what to do and giving examples of how other people have done it, or how things would be in a similar situation. So you become a role model for your clients by being a good coach and doing what you know and be the one you are.

This sounds a bit weird. Maybe I expand on this. If you know how to pull yourself out of the swamp like Muenchhausen, then you know how to pull other people out too. You need to be confident and do the same things that you would do with clients to yourself. And, when you build up the skills and knowledge, you are the example for your clients.

This is growing into the role of a coach. You live your values and become a role model to your clients.

You need to identify
- your identity: passion, vision, ethics and doing that by being curious and observing yourself
- relationships with others: be curious about them, build rapport and set the standard needed
- facts: understand the facts and be creative in your approach, building new models

Now, if we look at the above, I cannot help but thinking of my current job as a manager. I have been managing for quite some time, additional to my coaching – or vice versa if you like.
Being a good manager also means to be a good coach.

First you need to know where you stand and know what you want, represent, what your goals and objectives are and how you can fulfil your role. This is usually done during the decision making progress of choosing a new job. Once the job has been chosen, you identify your role in more detail and set up an action plan, targets, goals and objectives.

Secondly: you build rapport, relationship and be a role model for the people you manage. Set time aside each week, or every other week to discuss their role, their aims and their objectives. Make sure you understand what they want to achieve with their role, if they feel self confident in the role and how you can support them. Let them fail if you have to but don’t make them fail on purpose. Let them learn and give them guidance.

Thirdly keep yourself up to date. With your job, the industry, your contacts, your staff, staff morale, situations at work etc. Be the one you are and be informed about as much as possible. I am not referring to gossip but to a simple understanding of what is going on.

So from coaching yourself you can take the step to be a good manager and coach to your staff. A quality I find very essential for any manager. Develop your staff….but develop yourself first.

If you want more answers about coaching, please visit our website for Personal Development Coaching.

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