How Coaching Trends Have Changed

It may be obvious to say, but the coaching approach has changed a lot since the start of the pandemic. And it’s not just about Zoom rather than in-person coaching sessions, the content and focus of coaching have shifted too. Below you can find the biggest changes our coaches have witnessed in the last two years:

Increased Focus on Resilience.
The already existent workload and performance anxiety continue to increase even further due to the challenges imposed during the pandemic. Remote working and financial pressure placed on many organisations have only exacerbated the problem. It’s no surprise then that coaching has focused on developing resilience even more than before.

Wellbeing now ranks alongside career development. It used to be the case that the primary focus of most executive coaching interventions was career development. However, since the beginning of the pandemic, due to the increased work anxiety and stress, wellbeing has moved up the agenda and is now rivalling career development as a primary focus area.

Greater Openness
Executives have struggled over the years, to talk openly about their feelings. Our coaches have noticed a clear change in recent years with executives and employees finding it easier to open up about their emotions within a work context. This is to be welcomed as a more fundamental approach to coaching that has greater positive benefits, such as a reduction in stress, frustration, and anxiety, a decrease in perceptions of work pressure, improvement in work engagement and feelings of motivation, and many more.

Greater Emphasis on Team Relationships
Perhaps a natural consequence of remote working, team dynamics seem to have suffered from the lack of face-to-face contact. This is why team coaching is now an increased focus of attention. It’s not only about supporting an individual, but coaching the whole team as they seek to rebuild team cohesion and effectiveness in a virtual working environment. This makes team coaching an increasingly necessary and valued intervention in many organisations.

Greater Focus on Change Navigation
We’ve always known that change can be hard, but the pandemic has increased the need for flexibility and for organisations to be ready and able to shift strategy at a moment’s notice. This not only requires support for those navigating change, but it can also mean high levels of change fatigue. Executive coaching is increasingly turning towards supporting individuals as they navigate change and teaching them strategies to be able to manage their energy levels through periods of significant upheaval.

Executive coaching doesn’t stand still and over the last two years, our coaches have witnessed major changes. Some coaching values indeed remain the same over the years, but the ever-shifting sands of our working lives are demanding new approaches and new focus areas for executive coaching interventions.