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Coaching for career development

Coaching people to help them develop their career is one of the most common reasons for a leader or manager to coach staff in their organisation. Helping a colleague to develop further and to fulfil their ambitions and aspirations is certainly one of the most rewarding aspects of any coaching relationship. Much of what we have covered in earlier chapters will be useful when coaching for career development; however, the following ideas will add value and help you to focus on career issues.

What is career coaching?

Your role will be to help and support your coachee to think about their career so far, and to assist them with the planning process for their future career development. As with any coaching relationship, career development coaching involves commitment on both sides. It is also worthwhile recognising that coaching for career development does not always mean promotion, but can mean increasing breadth and depth of your coachee’s skills and capabilities so that they are better prepared for any possible career opportunities when they present themselves.

Making career decisions are among some of the most important decisions an individual will ever have to make, so your role as a coach in this context will be to help people to:

• Continue to be challenged, motivated and growing in their career.
  
• Reflect about what they have achieved so far.
  
• Understand how they have reached their current career stage.
  
• Explore possible career futures, dreams, ambitions and aspirations.
  
• Provide assistance by introducing them to the various tools and techniques that can help them to achieve their goals.
  
• Develop an actionable career plan with clear goals and stages.
  
• Keep on track with their goals by challenging, supporting and reviewing on a regular basis.
  

Areas to cover during a career development coaching relationship

A career development coaching relationship will probably involve you in a longer-term process than some of the other scenarios we have discussed. Of course this is up to the people involved, but we believe that in order to get the best out of this type of relationship be prepared for a relationship that might last for several months, even years.

During your sessions you should cover some or all of the following:

• Review their career so far to help them identify what they have achieved, how they have achieved it and why they made the career decisions they made. Help them understand their strengths, development needs, motivators, blind spots and any patterns that can be identified that have helped in their progress or that have hindered it. Some of the exercises in the chapter on coaching tools may be useful here, for instance Johari Window, SWOT Analysis, Time- or Lifeline (see Chapter 16). During this phase you may also like to use a psychometric tool to help your coachee explore their strengths, weaknesses, development needs and preferences. There are many tools on the market, some of which are easily accessible using the internet – however, many require specialist training to administer and debrief, so you may require assistance here, possibly from your HR department. Psychometrics that often prove useful in this context are:
  
  • Myers Briggs type indicator
    
  • Strength deployment inventory
    
  • Belbin team type questionnaire
    
  • Career anchors
    
  • Profiler or another generic 360° competence questionnaire
    
  • OPQ – Occupational Personality Questionnaire
    
  • Talent Q dimensions questionnaires
    
  • Team management systems
    
  • Hogan personality inventory
    

  These questionnaires can provide you with a wealth of information and will add to the quality of any career development discussion. They can help a person to raise their self-awareness and to explore aspects of their career and skills in more depth.
  

• Spend time helping your coachee to think about the parts of their job that energise them and provide them with the most satisfaction. Using the ‘finest moment’ exercise can be useful here. It can also be beneficial to think about those things that the coachee dislikes about their current job. Understanding what currently engages and disengages your coachee can be a useful exercise in that it will help the coachee when making decisions about future roles or career paths.
  
• Explore with them their career aspirations. What do they hope to achieve in their career? Sometimes it is a good idea to work with timescales when discussing this; for instance, ‘What are your aspirations for the next year, or five years?’ Or, whatever seems appropriate for the coachee’s current situation. During this exploration, no judgements should be made – allow the coachee to share their dreams and ideal career ambitions with you.
  
• Help your coachee to set career goals. The aim here is to make sure these are realistic and achievable. Once they have established their goals and a timeline for them, get them to think about how they will achieve them. What development will be necessary? What opportunities are available for improving, expanding and growing the skills and capabilities necessary to achieve their goals?
  
• Work with your coachee to regularly review any progress made against their goals. During this phase it is important to recognise that plans and goals change so you should also be prepared to help your coachee adapt and flex their plan to suit their circumstances.
  

Some useful career coaching questions

• What are your career goals and aspirations?
  
• Where do you see yourself in a year? Five years? Ten years?
  
• What energises and motivates you at work?
  
• What would you say you are passionate about?
  
• What achievements are you most proud of so far?
  
• Looking ahead, what would make this year a success for you?
  
• What do you see as your key strengths? Weaknesses? Development areas?
  
• What hurdles do you think you will have to cross to achieve your dreams?
  
• What have you learned in the past year that will contribute to your career success?
  
• How will you know when you have been successful?
  
• If money was not an issue for you, what would you do with your life? What does this tell you about yourself and your career?
  
• What do you like about your current job? What do you dislike about your current job?
  
• What would knock you off track?
  

Tips for success

• Actually make time to have these conversations – as they are not problem-based they often get forgotten. Development is the essence of coaching and helping others to grow is a coach’s main role.
  
• Adapt the suggested questions to suit your coachee’s situation.
  
• Recognise and appreciate their success and good work so far and be prepared to probe and challenge what else they could do.