Serving my clients well involves feeding myself first!
Professional growth and development are key for any coach, and a great way to do this is by investing in yourself. Learning and growing is essential for any coach to stay ahead of the curve and serve their clients well. It is also a rewarding source of motivation and satisfaction. In this blog, we will explore the importance of investing in knowledge, skills, and tools to improve your coaching practice.
Leadership coaches are:
- The tool and the instrument
- The container and the mirror
Keeping sharp, reflective, and building emotional agility are ethical aspects of this role.
How does one achieve this? Here are some of the existing practices that I would like to share.
- A good coach has a coach: In the last 12 years I have always had a coach for the many dimensions I am growing myself in. It has helped me feel supported and challenged too. It has revealed my blind spots, expanded my perspective, and helped me adopt an ambitious posture in my work. Acknowledging each of you for the richness you have brought Bob Dunham, Marty Raphael, Gail Mc Donald, Sairamesh, Stephanie Rosol and Sunita Biddu.
- Ongoing learning: For 14 years, I have been a part of diverse learning cohorts. Investing in knowledge, skills, and tools has fed my drive to learn. It has helped me feed my beginner mindset, set aside my ego, and kept me curious. It has kept me agnostic to a specific coaching model and helped me be eclectic in my approach. My most recent learning has been in the fascinating world of Existential Universal Mapper (EUM) certification as well as the EI tool called SCALE.
- Experiences feed my inner world: Coaches, especially those specialising in emotional intelligence coaching and transformational coaching need a personal exploration. A rich personal life helps us tune in and be more mindful. Sensorial experiential work, bodywork, mindfulness groups, movement work, and equestrian coaching have all been life-changing explorations that have advanced my emotional agility. Learning to balance my inner critic with self-compassion has been an outcome of delving constantly into my inner world. I write about this on my organization blog https://physis.co.in/self-compassion-vs-inner-critic/
- Belonging to a community of coaches: This has been invaluable as I have a place for peer supervision, support in tricky situations, and access to market knowledge. It helps me give, receive, and up the bar at work. One such community is the She Coaches community, Shemantra.
- Self-care for self-leadership – Constantly knowing my capacity, well-being, and energy is vital to my work. Paying attention to my health, sleep, and rest patterns helps me attend to my ‘being’ and ‘doing’. It helps me walk the talk and stay mindful. For self-care, I see significant value in building personal safe circles that support us. I wrote about this recently on my personal blog and you can read it here: https://sailajamanacha.com/creating-safe-circles/
Investing in knowledge, skills, and tools is the best way to stay on top of the latest trends and technologies. Keep your knowledge and skills up to date by attending conferences, workshops, and webinars. Network with peers to learn about new opportunities. Take advantage of online resources to learn new skills and stay abreast with the latest trends. So don’t be afraid to explore and experiment – the rewards are worth the effort!
Sailaja Manacha, a Master certified Coach from ICF, is known for her programs and coaching methods that combine psychology with leadership practices. In her work, Sailaja draws from Psychology, Ontology, NLP and Spiritual frameworks as well as rich, real-world experiences.
