Would You Make A Good Internal Coach?
Internal coaches have a great job. They get to help people within a specific organization or workplace in many different areas.
Some of the areas that internal coaches assist with include professional development, office atmosphere, employee relations, and improving communication.
Not only is it nice to be able to help people in these and other ways, but you also get to enjoy a steady job and income, rather than having to outsource your coaching abilities and work as a contract employee.
With that said, however, internal coaching is not for everyone. Typically, you need certain skills and abilities in order to be successful as an internal coach.
Know and Understand Yourself
Good internal coaches know and understand others, especially how people communicate and the different ways in which people react to certain situations and why.
In order to do that, however, you first have to understand yourself. You have to know your own strengths and weaknesses, how you are perceived by others, and how to communicate with others in a way that makes them feel comfortable and at ease, even if means stepping outside of your comfort zone or changing things about yourself and your own demeanor, at least when you're on the job.
Good internal coaches typically go through a lot of training and even undergo coaching themselves in order to obtain these skills. So, even if you are not naturally a very self-aware person, you can work to become one on your journey to being an effective internal coach.
Be and Effective Leader
To teach leadership to others as an internal coach, you have to actually be a good leader. You need to exude confidence and be okay with taking charge and leading a group.
If you're the type who is a natural born leader, then you're an obvious fit for internal coaching. However, just like with self-awareness, leadership skills can be taught. If you're willing to commit the time and energy to training, you can become a good and convincing leader even if you do not naturally possess leadership abilities.
Be a Problem-Spotter and Solver
Do you naturally analyze situations and pick out the problems that exist within them? Once you discover a problem or issue, do you automatically start thinking up solutions to that problem?
If you answered yes to these questions, then you'd probably make a great internal coach. A big part of the job is identifying issues in the workplace and coming up with plans to solve those issues.
As you can see, certain skills are necessary to be a great internal coach. However, if you're willing to work on developing any skills that don't come easily to you, you can still have success as an internal coach. Look into internal coach training programs to learn more.