"Coaching” - Just another buzzword or a truly helpful tool in your personal and professional growth?

Tell us a bit about yourself, about your journey so far and your current mission!

I‘m from London originally and worked my way up from a sales associate at GAP to mid-senior manager at Apple for seven years; then, I made a career transition to HR. I got headhunted for an HR Business Partner role, moved to Berlin and worked at Zalando for four years. I experienced depression, burned out, got promoted, and then left as soon as I could.

As a proud member of the great resignation, The pandemic taught me I needed to lead a more purpose-driven life, and having my first experience receiving coaching in 2021 planted the seed that I could pursue more of what would make me happy.

I took a job as a Global Vice President of HR in spring 2022 at a scale-up and then got laid off at Christmas. I found myself coming back to the topic of how to live a more purpose-driven life, and I trained as a Co-Active Coach in early 2023. In the summer of 2023, I founded Sana Executive Coaching & Consulting to help leaders and HR professionals become aware, grow and thrive in work and life! It was the best decision ever!

Why is coaching essential for those who work in HR?

The stats around the increase in burnout in HR teams are alarming. HR shouldered monumental change and delivered incredible impact for organisations across the world during the pandemic, but what we‘re still seeing is unclarity from executives about what they want from HR teams, leaving them in constant firefighting mode.

This is unsustainable, and executives cannot continue failing to acknowledge the “invisible work” that HR teams are doing behind the scenes to keep the ship afloat on top of their day job and constantly changing unclear expectations.

In any organisation, leaders have other leaders for support, the C-Suite have their peers for support, and who is there for HR Teams? Coaching is crucial to support HR professionals at all stages of their careers to ensure they have an unbiased sparring partner and supporter who wants nothing but their success and well-being and has no connection to their performance review and no influence on their salary increase. Can we hand on heart say that all HR Leads make decisions with the wellbeing of the HR teams in mind? In my experience, this is not the case.

How does coaching work in practice?

There are different types of coaching out there. I chose Co-Active Coaching because it´s a person centric approach and empowers the coachee to use their inner resources to solve real life challenges rather than solving problems for them and leaving the coachee without the tools to self manage in future.

Typically, the coachee initially comes to me and begins with a free “discovery session,” during which we identify what challenges the coachee wants to solve and what goals they have. During this session, I‘m spending a lot of time asking powerful questions to uncover what it is the client really wants versus what they think they want.

If we‘re a match to work together, I send a discovery questionnaire, which is a deep dive into all aspects of the coachee's life and gives me a clear picture of their goals, what they value, what makes them happy, what they want more of, and less of in their lives.

Coaching centres around powerful questions that the coachee cannot answer immediately, and this prompts deep reflection and self-discovery. We also use something called “resonance” which means tapping in peak experiences that coachee has had in life in order to bypass negative self talk and see what‘s possible from a different perspective.

How would I know that I need a coach?

If you reverse this question and ask why anyone needs to grow, progress, reach their goals, remove their blockers, or benefit from support, the case for coaching becomes crystal clear.

Why is coaching important for success?

The truth is, I didn't know what I didn't know, and I suspect this is the case for many other HR professionals. I was 47 when I experienced receiving coaching for the first time as a mid-senior HR business partner. I‘d been through so much over the twenty-plus years of my leadership career, and if I had known what coaching was and how it could transform my life, I‘d have got one in my corner much sooner.

Where and how should I start?

Take some quiet time for yourself somewhere you enjoy where you can think without being disturbed. Ask yourself: What do I want more/less of in life? What am I struggling to change? What are my goals and dreams? This is the starting point for coaching.

How should I select my coach?

Just like a lot of personal work, who you feel comfortable working with definitely depends on rapport. Choose a coach who makes you feel heard, supported, safe and like they‘re genuinely excited to help you on your journey to reach your goals.

What are the essentials for a good coach-coachee relationship?

There is a misconception that anybody can be coached. This is not true. For the process to work, you have to want to engage in coaching as a coachee. You have to commit to doing the work during and between sessions.

Lots of people think it‘s the coach who does the heavy lifting in coaching - if you‘re a committed coachee and do the work, you‘ll feel out of your comfort zone (but supported by your coach), and this is how you‘ll know that you‘re creating your own transformation that paves the way to achieving your goals.

When getting a coach is a bad decision?

When you don‘t have the time or motivation to engage in coaching, and you are not ready to make the financial investment in your own growth journey.

What was your personal story that inspired you to get a coach?

All good coaches have a coach because they‘re committed to their own lifelong growth and development. Even today, as a coach and a founder, I have my own coach, Michelle. She‘s amazing and is always in my corner to cheer me on and help me when I fall.

I was actually approached to be a coachee in a Positive Intelligence cohort in 2021, and discovering my saboteurs changed my life in six weeks. It‘s because of that six-week cohort that I am where I am today, helping others with

How can readers connect with you on socials?

They can DM me on LinkedIn or book a free discovery at https://calendly.com/sanaecc/discovery

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The original post was published on HRnuggets.io.