The past few years have witnessed the rise in the popularity of coaching as a tool in employee development. However, there are still organizations that continue to see failure in implementing coaching initiatives. Oftentimes, failure stems from a certain lack of understanding coaching and its role in organizational success and development.

Let us review the purpose of coaching. More often than not, companies embark on coaching programs help develop leadership and interpersonal skills. Coaching also helps develop self-awareness by allowing individuals to become more aware of their shortcomings, as well as growth opportunities. It also helps individuals to review their past work behavior and how this has affected his or her performance and other people. Coaching is also one way of helping people balance their professional and personal roles more effectively. Organizations also use coaching as a tool in improving performance and work relationships.

It is also helpful to understand the differences in the roles of managers, mentors, and coaches. Managers assume more formal roles in the organization. Their job is to make sure that the main tasks of individuals, teams, and the organization itself are met. Simply put, managers place the accomplishment of organizational tasks ahead of the others.

Mentors on the other hand have closer interpersonal relationships with other individuals in the organization. They help protgs understand the organization and their roles in the organization. Coaches are more concerned with professional and personal growth. The most effective coaches are usually those who are not associated in any way to the company aside from giving coaching.

Adopting a coaching method really depends on the kind of organization that needs it. When organizations want to identify which areas to improve on, what tools need to be applied, and what processes are needed to improve organizational performance, it would be helpful to adopt an engineering approach to coaching. However, if organizations want to employ coaching to help employees incorporate the various elements of their lives so they can achieve psychological integration and social harmony, a more clinical approach to coaching might come in handy.

There are also different kinds of coaching that can help organizations develop a coaching culture. External personal coaching requires coaches to be totally independent from the company except for the coaching task alone. Each and every individual from the organization can benefit from external personal coaching as this allows individuals to explore sensitive professional and personal themes. Team leadership coaching requires leaders to help their members think psychologically in an organizational environment. Peer coaching allows individuals in organizations to confide in each other, work interdependently and collaboratively, and discuss and resolve professional and personal conflicts as they arise.