Life Coach and Executive Coach
What is the Difference?
Coaching is a process where a professional, certified coach helps people engage in self-discovery to reach their optimal personal and professional potential. There could be several things holding you back. Everybody can use a little help to improve themself. A coach is different from a mentor, guide, or counsel in that you enter a partnership with a coach. It is a two-way process of self-discovery and self-actualization. These professionals motivate you to overcome your fears and shortcomings and help you grow.
Life Coaching
Life coaching is more of a generalized form of coaching, where a life coach helps in self-improvement, personal growth, and professional development. Through meetings and discussions, he evaluates your present state and helps you identify your strengths and weaknesses. It enables you to get a better understanding of yourself.
Together you identify the goals you want to achieve and the internal issues that hinder the achievement of that goal. You get help in bridging the gap between your present state and your potential. To get from point A to B, your life coach helps you identify your strengths and weaknesses,
From there onwards, your life coach works with you to further break down those goals, identify the obstacles, and devise a plan of action to achieve the goals. It includes preparation for the likely obstructions and ways to handle them. Along the process, your coach tends to monitor your progress, enable you to stay focused, and help modify your goals if required.
Life coaches provide custom solutions for the issues that concern you. They help you develop a vision for the future and push you to achieve more. By holding you accountable, they promote productivity.
Executive Coaching
Executive coaches offer their services to professionals in their work environment. They aim to help clients achieve their professional potential. In so doing, they need to interact with the entire system. It involves engagement with individuals on a broader scale. Their scope increases from an individual to more people, including the boss, human resource person, and even other people in his team.
It requires an in-depth analysis of the tangible and intangible assets and weaknesses. The executive coaches then help devise a plan of action to deal with the internal and external factors to achieve the goals set out at the beginning. They tend to implement these coaching strategies and monitor progress on the premises.
These professionals empower Organizations to utilize their existing capabilities to the max and enhance their capacity to achieve the desired professional goals.
Where the Difference Lies?
Both life coaches and executive coaches motivate you to achieve what you want and push you to go above yourself. Both analyze the situation and devise plans. But the focus of life coaching is your personal growth. It may or may not be related to your achievements at work.
You may seek a life coach; to escape a negative mindset, get motivation for a healthy lifestyle, or get rid of self-destructive habits. Even if you have not had a setback in life, life coaching can help you bridge the gap between who you are and who you want to be.
Executive coaching helps the organization achieve its business goals by building or shifting to a healthy organizational culture, enhancing the performance of individuals in critical roles, providing professional and personal development, and assisting in stress management. All in all, it is a learning and development opportunity, and the organization benefits a great lot.
3. Enable Transformation
Organizational leaders make more advances when they build strong interpersonal relationships with individuals working with them. Such relationships can only form when leaders have exceptional emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a combination of enhanced self-awareness, self-management, relationship management, and empathy. Coaches help leaders develop a higher emotional intelligence through their observation and feedback mechanism. They point out aspects of behavior that need improvement and assist them with strategies for personal development. It enables leaders to apply their emotional intelligence to understand stressful situations and take appropriate measures to control unwanted outcomes. They are thus able to set realistic expectations for themselves and their teams, resulting in lower stress and harmonious team interactions.
