A Week in the Life of a Coach at Boo By Helen Smith – Director of People & Development & Award Winning Executive Coach

Celebrating International Coaching Week

Yay, it’s International Coaching Week! Okay, so it might not mean much to some people, but I thought I’d use it to share what a typical week might look like for me as an executive coach, along with being a facilitator, trainer and coach supervisor – but they all come back to coaching in one way or another.

Monday: Strengths, Preparation and Anticipation

Kicking off the week with a 1:1 strengths coaching session. We use Clifton Strengths assessment for identifying someone’s top 5 strengths. But as with any report, it is what you do with it that makes the difference. We always have a 1:1 coaching session to help people explore their strengths and understand how they show up in their work. By helping people to recognise and understand their strengths, they can start to use them to improve their performance and to find more satisfaction in their work.

The rest of the day is finalising and prepping for a bespoke leadership programme tomorrow. The first module of a 5 module programme. I’m excited to get this new piece of work off the ground! It’s a big project with a 10 month programme across 4 cohorts, combining face to face training session, group coaching and some mini online knowledge booster sessions. I’m looking forward to seeing people grow and develop, share their learnings and reflections and boost their confidence as they put it into action. We don’t always get to walk alongside our learners for this long, so this feels particularly special. So an afternoon of pulling together the materials and preparing the flipcharts is a good way to get focussed on doing the best job that I can.

Tuesday: The big start

Not quite the morning I had expected as I had an email rescheduling my coaching supervision. Initially was disappointed as it is a real treat when I get some time to invest in myself as a coach. But actually, maybe this morning isn’t the best time for me to focus inwards as my mind is preoccupied with the anticipation of getting the new leadership programme off the ground. So instead, I do some much-needed faffing – my way of checking everything is all ready – and I decided to start writing this blog for International Coaching Week!

The long-awaited training session went really well! Meeting the first cohort, taking time to get to know each other at the start of our 10 month journey, exploring emotional intelligence as the foundation for a great leader and taking time for self reflection whilst learning new skills. So happy that the session went well and participants enjoyed themselves!

Wednesday: In the flow

A new day welcomes the start of cohort 2 on the bespoke leadership session. Great to be in the flow following cohort 1 yesterday. Although I’m missing my teammate, Cath, as yesterday we had the luxury of co facilitating. I love connecting with my team as I’m at my most creative when I am in a real space with people that I know and trust. However, the session went really well again and it was great to see the same positive energy in the room whilst flying solo.

Thursday: Holding Reflective Spaces for Others

My final day of the week brings some supervision sessions. I’m mostly familiar to doing coaching supervision, but this is a little bit different as the people that I am supervising are not training coaches, they work in the mental health field. The supervision space is a time for them to explore whatever might be coming up for them in their work. We have created a safe space in the group built on honesty, openness, trust and confidentiality. Itis coaching based as I help people to find their own solutions based on their wealth of experience. It’s a real privilege to hold space like this — especially for those whose day-to-day jobs involve holding space for others.

And In Between…

Somewhere in between all of this, I have also started researching for a new coaching CPD session – I love taking these opportunities to learn and reflect and to create something where coaches can develop their coaching practice. I deliver coaching CPD for a range of customers and also on an open and affordable basis through Boo – for any coach to easily sign up to and give their learning a boost!

I’ve liaised with customers, created programme evaluations and prepped and created for other work we have going on.

Making Space to Reflect

As a coach and as an individual, I find that I need time to reflect, to think, to sort through my busy mind and have space to breathe. This is the bit that sometimes gets squeezed out as our working weeks are busy. I sometimes feel guilty for doing this as I know there are people waiting for me to get things done. I also know that in order to achieve all of this I need to take that time and space. Working a 4 day week gives me a day to do just that. On a Friday you will often find me out walking, pottering in the garden or just relaxing on the sofa – all in a reflective space of processing my week, my work, my thoughts, my feelings and capturing ideas ready for getting back into the practical coaching space the following week.

Why I Love What I Do

So, another varied and interesting week! As someone that can get bored easily, I love the fact that coaching offers me so much variation and working with people is so interesting – you never quite know what you’re going to get next – but I know that helping people to reflect, learn, grow and develop is a privilege and one that I love.

Helen x

Did you know that we are offering a discount all our coaching resources in our shop during International Coaching Week – head there now to top up your toolkit!