Both workplace coaching and mentoring are powerful tools to use in organisations. Businesses have been benefiting from coaching as well as mentoring for ages. There is a big confusion about what is mentoring and what is coaching. Most people think professional coaching and mentoringare the same thing, or at least similar. Yet there are differences between them. The biggest difference is here:
The coach does not have to be an expert in the subject in which they are coaching. As a matter of fact, they do not even need to have experience in the subject. However, a mentor must be experienced in the subject in which they are mentoring; they must have knowledge of and expertise in the subject.
In mentoring, frequency of the meetings can be informal. The meetings may as well be spontaneous as planned, the mentee can contact the mentor when needed.
More long-term. While it is employed in companies for the purposes of career development, knowledge, and experience transfer; in informal forms of mentoring, the mentor may approach the individual’s development in a more extensive manner.
The mentor needs to be more experienced and qualified than the mentee. Generally, individuals whose knowledge and experience transfer is seen as valuable come together with less experienced individuals in order to contribute to their growth.
In mentorship relationship, the mentor can give advice to the mentee. The mentor also teaches the mentee about the subject matter of the developmental need.
In Professional Coaching, the time period and number of meetings are specified from the beginning. The number of sessions usually start with 6 sessions and go up to 12 sessions. The frequency of the meetings is much more structured. There are regular intervals between the meetings such as a week, two weeks or once a month.
Professional Coaching relationship requires that the coach is able to manage the client’s progress and accountability. That is why the relationship has a certain period defined in the beginning of the relationship with specific focus on clear development goals.
It is not necessary for the coach to be a subject matter expert; this is a matter of preference.
In professional coaching relationship, the coach helps the coachee to obtain awareness and stretch themselves in order to maximize their potential. In order to provide that, the coach knows how to listen and ask powerful questions.
The reason why we feel a need to differentiate coaching as “professional coaching” is about the investment behind it. Professional coaches invest in their skill development and complete a certified coach training program through an accredited coaching school or institute. As coaching has been one of the most hype professions of the 21st century, professional coaches want to differentiate yourself from the crowd by investing in their coaching skills, confidence and competencies.
There are different types of specialty areas where professional coaches may focus on such as Life coaching; Executive Coaching; Career Coaching; Business Coaching; Workplace Coaching; Parenting Coaching; Youth Coaching; Team Coaching; Relationships Coaching… Whatever the specialty is, professional coaches work towards creating progress and positive change.
The FLOW Coaching Institute’s (FCI®) professional coach certification program was accredited by International Coach Federation in 2014. Creativity is the essence of FLOW Coach Method. At FLOW, we know that creativity opens up new thinking, new choices, new ways. FLOW Coaching certification training program is acknowledged as the most creative approach to professional coaching with a strong foundation rooted in ;
“What I like the most about FLOW’s online program is to see how invested and generous our program instructors have been. From their authenticity and guidance, you can tell that FLOW’s program instructors and mentors really want to see us succeed. When you complete the program you definitely feel like you are intested too.”- Tammy Douglas – Internal Talent Coach & Corporate Creativity Facilitator
Positive Psychology works. In the past, psychologists and researchers rarely considered or assessed positive emotions such as joy or happiness, except as a means of establishing the absence of depressiın or negative feelings. Research done by Professor Barbara Frederickson has shown us that when people are experiencing positive emotional states, they are more likely to view a challenge and its solutions more broadly-to be more creative and resourceful in their responses-and, as a result, to build up a greater capacity of social, emotional and mental perspectives from which they can benefit, even at times of stress and uncertainty.
Positive Psychology is interested in the science of well-being and happiness. It looks at what it takes to live a good life- a life that is really fulfilling and meaningful. After many years of research, Doctor Martin Seligman and Professor Mihaly Csziksentmihalyi came up with factors and acpects that contribute to a life that is worth of living:
Although Positive Psychology is based on soundest research principles, we believe that it shouldn’t be limited to the domain of academia. There is so much in it for everybody to learn and implement into our lives in order to achieve how to create a good life that is worth to live. Therefore, It is an important mission to Flow Coaching Institute to make these principles accessible to everybody through training, workshops, one on one coaching and corporate programs that we have been executing.
All of us worry or get scared sometimes. But if you feel extremely stressed or afraid much of the time, or if you repeatedly feel panicky, you may have an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental illnesses, affecting millions of people each year. And yet, it does not have to be your destiny! There are effective treatment approaches, including cognitive behavioral therapies, psychotherapy, and medications. There are also integrative treatments to cope with anxiety, such as relaxation techniques, mindfulness meditation, and biofeedback.
Anxiety Symptoms
While symptoms vary widely, chances are good that at some point you’ve experienced occasional physical and emotional distress signals such as panicky breathing, your heart pounding in your chest, trouble sleeping, feelings of dread, or even loops of worry. By itself, anxiety isn’t a problem. It anchors the protective biological response to danger that boosts heartbeat and breathing, pumping oxygenated blood to your muscles as your body prepares to fight or flee. A healthy dose of anxiety can motivate you to get to work on time, move you to study well for an exam, or discourage you from walking alone in the unknown places at night.
Having anxiety is normal. The problem is that sometimes our anxiety responses get out of control, so that we overreact or react to the wrong situations, people or events.
Types of Anxiety Disorders
Source: Harvard Medical School
The results of anxiety
Quality of life suffers when the anxiety persists. Intrusive thoughts, panic attacks, intense self-consciousness and fear of rejection, and other results of anxiety disorders compel people to avoid anxiety-provoking situations. This interferes with relationships, work, school, and activities as people isolate themselves, turn down opportunities, and undermine our joys of life.
There are effective interventions for anxiety
Often, a combination of these approaches is most effective. For example while having CBT, art therapy and/or exposure therapy it is effective to cultivate and strengthen coping skills to retain anxiety manageable such as learning to do yoga, meditation or beginning to paint, etc.
People are tricky beings and leading them isn't an easy job, but some leaders make it harder on themselves by ignoring a few simple principles of emotional intelligence.
You don't need to be an expert, or focus an extraordinary amount of effort towards emotional intelligence (also referred to as EQ) for you and your team to experience the benefits. By following a few basic principles, you can improve your emotional intelligence, and as a result, improve many things, from employee experience to organizational performance.
Business knowledge, technical skills, being result oriented and experience are important for nearly any business position, but they're not the only ones. As in his Emotional Intelligence book Daniel Goleman states: "It’s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but…they are the entry-level requirements for executive positions."
So, what else these managers need to learn and improve to transform themselves into leaders with people skills?
1. Self-awareness
Self-awareness is about being honest and having a transparent relationship with the self. It is described as "the ability to recognize and understand personal moods and emotions and drives, as well as their effect on others." It is the foundation of becoming an authentic leader.
2. Self-regulation
Self regulation is our ability to manage and regulate our emotions. It prevents us from having ups and downs and regulate our mood. It also helps us to identify self goals and have inner discipline to take action towards achieving them. It is about valuing our own accountability without needing others to hold us accountable.
3. Internal drive
Internal drive can be described as "having an apetite for work that goes beyond money and status."
Leaders with strong emotional intelligence understand their internal motivations, and how those motivations correlate with their values as well as those of their team and the organization.
A leader with a drive knows how to energize people and usually their people are inspired by them. These internally fueled leaders are also resilient. They are marathon runners and they do not quit until they reach their target.
4. Empathy and communication skills
Empathy is the ability for someone to understand and the feelings of another person and have compassion about them. It's a key ingredient of trust and building fulfilling relationships.
Leaders without empathy, carry a high risk of being perceived as abrasive and toxic as they are ignorant of the emotional impact of their actions and decisions.
An empathetic leader however has a capacity to assess how their vision and decisions will be perceived and they communicate well to prevent future damage. They know how to relate their employees and visa versa.
It is no surprise that professional coaching has been one of the fastest growing occupations around the world in 21stcentury. How does one become a professional coach?
Going through a certified coach training program is the first step of becoming a coach. Not any program, but a program that has an accreditation from a legitimate organization such as the International Coach Federation. The International Coach Federation (ICF) is the most internationally renowned accreditation organization across the world. The International Coach Federation has different tracks that lead to certified coach credentialing:
ACC/ACSTH track can be considered as the entry level to becoming a credentialed coach through ICF. Whereas the ACTP Professional coaching accredition path can be considered as the gold standard in the world of coach certification training. The FLOW Coaching Institute’s coaching certification programsa have both ACC/ACSTH and ACTP accreditations. FLOW’s short track online ACC/ACSTH program provides Professional coach education with individual mentoring sessions to prepare our student coaches for their future coaching career. FLOW’s ACTP coaching accreditation program has everything that you would need to become a successful Professional coach and be able to coach holistically.
So, if you are looking for an online coaching certification program, make sure that the program has at least one of these logos: ACSTH or ACTP .
Flow Coaching Institute is mainly based on the science of positive psychology and the Flow Model. When we first started Flow Coaching Institute we wanted to make sure that everything that we taught was backed by science and is something tangible that makes sense to not just our students but their potential clients as well.
The science of positive psychology is something we practiced on our own before we even started Flow Coaching Institute. We know for a fact that using the principles of positive psychology will greatly allow you to recognize your full potential in all areas of your life. The fact that it is rooted in positivity will transform you into a much happier person by the end of it.
Positive psychology was introduced in 1998 by the founder’s Dr. Martin Selgiman and Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi. There has been a lot of back and forth going around in describing just what Positive Psychology is and the best way to explain it as well as the most commonly accepted definition is:
“Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living” (Peterson, 2008).
This means that it is a scientific approach to studying human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. And we also then focus on their strengths instead of their weaknesses. To build good things in life rather than “fixing” the bad. The main focuses of positive psychology are centered around positive experiences, traits, and also positive thoughts and mindsets. Things like self-esteem, confidence, hope, gratitude, and compassion are all main ideas of positive psychology.
The foundational study surrounding positive psychology was published in 2000 with Dr. Martin Seligman and the “founding father” of flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It is seen that after this, there has been a much bigger calling surrounding the focus on positivity in life.
When it came to merging the science of positive psychology and the Flow Methodology, we decided to focus on three main pillars. They are:
All ICF Certified coaching programs that are offered in Flow Coaching Insititute instill these three pillars of positive psychology. Which allows all our graduates to go forth into the world to spread happiness.
It also allows these coaches to show their clients the positivity of their futures and to also accept and see their past as a resource to then create their desired reality with grounded optimism.
These pillars are the backbone of all our programs here at Flow Coaching Institute and it has been the main reason why so many students from Flow flourish once they graduate.
Focusing on the good things in life is a given, but with the Flow model, we have structured it in a way that it becomes a grounding exercise. We accept our past, we learn from it and we apply the things we learn from it to better our future.
We have often said that the science of positive psychology isn’t that hard to understand, it’s not rocket science, but it is a science regardless. However, implementing it isn’t that hard and can be done by anyone after they have fully understood what it stands for and how we can use it to transform lives.
Creating a happier life is in no one else’s hands but yours, so how do you implement these pillars to create a happier life for yourself? Or rather how do our coaches go ahead and coach their clients with this methodology and see amazing results? Well, the focus mainly on:
We hope that this article has given you a quick and fun insight into what the science of positive psychology is and which parts of that are used in Flow Coaching Institute and that are taught to our amazing students.
Let us know what your thoughts are on the science of positive psychology? We would love to hear from you.
As a coach, asking powerful, positive questions is a huge part of your coaching journey. A successful coach is usually known for their ability to ask thought-provoking questions and to also show their clients a different perspective by asking these questions.
Another thing a great coach should be able to do is to get to the root cause of any issues their clients are facing by asking these thought-provoking and uplifting questions.
Most of the time, when a client comes to you, they are in search of changing something in their lives. If it’s not to change something, it is something that they want to achieve and they need your help getting there or understanding what they need to do to get there. Or what limiting beliefs they need to shed before they can truly transform and become what they foresee themselves to be.
This is why we believe that asking questions that are powerful and thought-provoking are extremely important to shape conversations with your client that will help facilitate that process.
Here are some reasons why we believe asking great coaching questions is extremely important for any coaching session.
It brings about a sense of ownership and empowerment
It Builds Trust
It Boosts Their Confidence
Today, we are looking at 22 coaching questions that we believe you can ask your client to uplift and transform any conversation.
For Life Coaching
For Business & Career Coaching
For Goal-Setting
For Overall Thought-Provoking
There are so many different variations of thought-provoking questions you can ask your clients. Always understand what part of their life needs the most help and start there.
What are some of the most important questions that you will need to ask your clients once you start working with them? We would love to hear your ideas!
Have you ever wanted to hire a business coach? But, your main concern was you had no idea what a business coach did or how they could help you? This isn't too uncommon. A lot of people understand the benefit of a coach, but since a coach works on your mental state and perhaps in helping you grow your business offline -- it might be hard to truly see and understand the benefits of your coaching sessions. So, how do you put a number to your coaching sessions? Or how do you choose a business or executive coach for a positive coaching return on investment (ROI) -- well, read on to find out!
How To Choose A Business/Executive Coach For a Positive Coaching ROI
Businesses are giving extra attention to Executive Coaching with the increased globalization and economic pressure. It’s a preferred tool for CEOs, CFOs, and executives looking to improve their leadership standing in a company.
Finding the business/executive coach with the right skills can be a daunting task. In this article, we discuss ways on how this can be made easier.
The most effective executive coaches are those who pay attention to the coaching interaction by:
It may seem obvious, but successful coaches care about their client’s achievements.
Also, they should use many types of information gained from different channels to provide feedback to the client. It’s the coach’s job to understand the complexities of the environment and the challenges existing for the client.
Effective coaches do not fear pushing the boundaries of the client to stretch their performance. Great coaches find different ways to challenge an executive in unconventional ways.
The feedback provided by the client should be direct, business-specific, and professional. Good business coaches know when to push the client and when to provide support.
Coaches make themselves available to clients at the right time. It is to help them get ready for specific situations like before an important meeting, for a specific business alliance, or team-related tasks. Business Coaches support clients with real-life situations to help them identify and apply the behaviors needed for success.
Coaches should:
Effective coaches are seeking data from different sources and apply it in a way that sets the client for success. A great coach wants to deeply understand the business context and strategy, leadership style preferences and motivations, emotional intelligence, problem-solving ability, and the perspectives of people surrounding their client. Coaches gain information to determine what factors play an important role in clients reaching their results.
The remaining process is the application. Some coaches make the mistake of using the same approach to all when creating plans. It is more useful and creates a lasting change if the development plans are unique to the person and tailored specifically to suit their challenges and environment.
The development plans are specific actionable goals not more than 3-5 unique to the person that will directly benefit the client or the organization. These goals then can be reached with small behavioral changes over time.
Just make sure to gauge the coach’s experience and approach before entering a coaching agreement. The best coach is who can guide you with the best communication and strategy, who is willing to stretch your performance and stimulate your mind for various alternatives never considered before. Coaches should use a combination of behavioral changes and mental mindset shifts to create higher performance and reduce derailing behaviors.
Successful executive coaches keep in mind the success of the company as well as the executive. An effective coaching process includes regular check-ins to make sure the executive is moving in a direction fruitful for his individual self and the company.
The return on the coaching investment can be measured both by the executive’s change and the organization’s change over a period of 6-12 months. Useful questions to ask during these times are “is the executive moving in a direction positive to the company?” and “Has the company benefited from executives change?” Choosing the right executive coach with the right approach will yield a positive return on coaching investment.
If you are looking to become an executive coach or a business coach, check out our latest schedule to see when's the next intake. Or send us an email at info@flowcoachinginstitute.com. We can't wait to see you!
Myths are stories that help us develop our beliefs, culture and help us understand our world but there are many types of myths one being the kind in which we think understand something new but in reality, we really don’t and those myths spread like wild-fire. Such myths can make people deprived of something truly great as with time these myths begin to sound very truth-like. Similarly, there are many myths about life coaching that we will discuss in this article.
8 Myths about Life Coaching
This is a common misconception that coaching is the new form of therapy however this is not true. A landmark case was won that established coaching as a separate profession from therapy. However, you will notice that many therapists join the bandwagon and became coaches.
This can be true maybe many years ago from now, just like any profession in its early days. Professions develop over time. Every profession starts with just a few practitioners.
Eventually, regulatory bodies like ICF come into being and standardize the process. Then coaching institutes came which provided this teaching to many others and coaching is now a legit profession.
You can get away with anything in coaching
Since coaching isn’t regulated by the government it causes some confusion and people think you can get away with anything in coaching. However, fortunately, there are regulatory bodies like ICF that have established ethical guidelines and best practices in coaching. If you are working with an ICF Certified Coach you can be certain that they are following the set ethics and ICF core competencies.
Training isn’t needed for coaching
This depends on how successful you want to be as a coach. The ICF has been surveying for many years and has found out that coaches who have received coach-specific training are more likely to be successful and less likely to drop out of the profession. So, if you want to be a successful coach, get ICF accredited coach training which can be a lifetime investment.
With a degree in Psychology, you’re okay to coach
This isn’t true. You need to invest in an ICF accredited coach training program, most degrees in psychology or social work won't work. There is so much more to coaching that goes past just a degree. There are scientific studies and real-time coaching hours we use to ensure that whatever we say or do in a session is beneficial and effective for our clients.
Clients don’t check if you are certified
Of course, they do, ICF surveyed actual coaching clients and asked them if they would prefer to work with a certified coach and 84% of them replied that they very much care if their coach is certified. Numbers do not lie.
If you would not go to a certified doctor, why would you not want to go to a coach who is also certified? Being certified also tells your clients that you are willing to take your profession seriously and that in turn shows them that you are serious about changing their lives too. It shows dedication and respect for the profession above all else.
Coaches have the answers for everything
It is a common myth that coaches know everything. But that’s not true. Coaches are skilled to ask important coaching questions that stimulate the client's mind and help them find the answers themselves.
Coaching is only for celebrities
As Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO once said, “everyone needs a coach” It’s a myth that only high-level executives, celebrities, movie stars, and rich people need coaching. As the profession grows there are coaches that focus on all types of clients. Coaching is for everyone.
In ancient times myths spread because there was too little information available. Nowadays myths are created for the opposite reason as there is too much information available and not sure which is true.
As a coach, it is your responsibility to spread the truth about coaching. Effective coaching can make a difference in this world where everyone has their own opinions about coaching. If you want to enroll in an ICF Accredited Coach Training Program sign up for one of our upcoming courses.
What are some myths you would like debunked? Let us know in the comments below.