Case Study: Self-Funded Coaching Engagement
While coaching is often funded by your employer, it can also be self-funded. You might decide to do this if you are planning a transition, at a career crossroads, or want to consider roles beyond your current employer.
Who I worked with:
This was a 5 hour self-funded coaching engagement, spanning a period of 6 months. In this case study, the client was an Executive in a technology start-up, referred to here as ‘Jane’.
The challenge:
Jane, in her early 30’s, was at a pivotal point in her career. She engaged me as her coach to help in a period where she was in a new leadership role and did not feel she was performing at her best, fulfilling her potential, or setting herself up for future success.
The process:
In terms of measuring progress, although there was no “third party” involved in this self-funded coaching engagement it was still just as important to agree on the objectives for coaching.
In the first session, we agreed that the focus of coaching was how to be more impactful as a leader and feel more motivated in her role by getting clarity of purpose. Jane was also keen to explore her leadership strengths and understand more about the impact of her leadership style on the people in her team.
We met monthly over a period of six months. As we worked together, each coaching session was bespoke and focussed on the specific topic that Jane chose to bring. For example, the topic Jane brought into one session was how to be more visible within her organisation, and have greater influence. In another session we worked on improving her feedback approach.
Jane took away actions/experiments from each coaching session.
The results:
As coaching progressed, Jane noted that she was feeling more confident about providing regular feedback to people in her team, but she was also more confident about having important conversations with her leader (managing upwards).
Jane developed self-awareness about her strengths and preferred leadership style, which enabled her to think about the sort of role she wished to pursue within – or outside of – the organisation.