How does Coaching Work?
Coaching can help you make the most of opportunities and overcome a wide range of challenges in the workplace. It is a confidential 1-1 conversation which is facilitated by the coach, but is focused on your needs as the client, with the objective of supporting you to become more self-aware, take more personal responsibility and through this to become more effective. My role as a coach in this process is not to provide the answers, but through questions and providing a process, to enable you as the client to discover your own solutions, and consider the best course of action for you and your organisation. It is a stimulating, enriching and enjoyable experience.
I work according to the Code of Ethics of the International Coaching Federation
Starting the coaching journey
I like to see coaching as a partnership with you on a journey to explore, reflect on, reframe and resolve your issues in the workplace. The journey starts with building a good and trusting relationship between us, this is essential for you to be able to talk openly about what is on your mind, share insights and think the unthinkable. I discuss your expectations of coaching, to help you understand how coaching could benefit you. I explain the coaching process briefly because the more you understand and engage with the coaching process the more successful and powerful the outcomes are likely to be. After an initial open-ended conversation to explore your over-arching aspirations for the coaching we funnel down to smaller and more specific goals that can be achieved during each session
Working together to create your unique coaching pathway
Our journey together will take us down many new, diverse and sometimes unexpected paths. I have no preconceptions of the direction of each session. I always work with what you want to talk about and achieve in each session. My questions closely follow your narrative flow whilst keeping the session goal in mind. I like to add in a carefully calibrated level of challenge through my questions to act as a catalyst for change. Clients tell me they find this thought-provoking without being threatening.
I particularly like the way she uses creative techniques to enable me to get to the heart of my business issues rapidly which resonates with my own creative style. Aga Leharto, Deep Blue Waters
With your permission I introduce new tools or approaches. I select these according to your goals for the session, your preferred ways of working with me, the topic we are talking about, your external circumstances and the stage of our coaching relationship. Towards the end of each session I will ask you to reflect on your learning and insights from the session, and work with you to turn these into concrete steps you are committed to implementing in the workplace between our sessions. This beds down the learning and leads to sustainable changes.
‘Lesley has a very adaptable approach to her coaching and achieves the goal of each session by using various coaching models. She does this with ease and is always able to elicit the best possible response from me’. Associate Professor, Kingston University
https://rcsunplugged.s3.amazonaws.com/lesley-hayman-real-coaching-sessions-unplugged-september12-2023.m4a for a live example of my coaching from an invited demo session for Real Coaching Unplugged.
Achieving the overall goals of the coaching engagement over a series of sessions
Over time, we will work with a wide range of techniques and approaches that gradually will move you closer to achieving your overall goals for the coaching engagement. Our coaching journey together can enable you to reach positive and often unexpected outcomes surprisingly quickly. Over time this can lead to powerful and transformative change both personally and professionally. Clients tell me they feel more inspired, more confident and better managers as a result.
‘The most useful and wonderful coaching sessions are when clients learn something new about themselves and not just focus on the problem they want to solve. [Lesley Hayman’s] coaching is a good example. It requires a skillful coach to achieve that. [Lesley Hayman] excels in the following areas: contracting, coaching presence, powerful questions and how she creates awareness. The coaching session has an easy flow, her coaching presence is easily recognizable by her being observant, empathetic and responsive. Coach demonstrates a beautiful “dance in the moment”. She partners with her client by supporting her to choose what happens in the session. Her questions are customized by using what she has learned about the client.’
Dr. Zita Delevic, Ph.D, SPHR, PCC,CPCC, Professional Certificate in Coaching Assessor
Lesley Hayman Executive Coach 