Why do we coach?
by Bing Matoto
Her mantra succinctly captures the value of coaching: Coaching good leaders to become great coaches, because great leaders lead great teams.
I am very passionate about coaching, and so are thousands of people all over the world as well. As of March 2021, there are approximately 44,000 coaches in 151 member-countries of the International Coaching Federation (ICF), a non-profit organization dedicated to the pursuit of professional coaching.
In the Philippines alone, there are 114 members of ICF with the number rapidly increasing, particularly because of the ravages wrought by the pandemic on our psyche and business enterprises these past two years. The search for relief in any form on how to cope has intensified.
Can coaching provide some relief? How? To answer these questions, I posed the question — “Why do you coach?” — to a pair of ICF coaches, Anda Goseco, a highly experienced, accomplished and multi-awarded coach, and Anne Sznaper, a newbie starting off on her coaching journey who has just discovered the fulfillment of the profession.
Allow me to share their starkly different profiles and yet similar coaching perspectives.
Anda Goseco embarked on her coaching career about 12 years ago after her corporate stints in HR, Sales and Marketing in household names, such as Globe and Ayala Land.
She has trained internationally with Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching, Gallup Certified Strengths Coach, and a member-by-invitation coach program Virtuoso. She has been recognized as among the Top 3 Best Asia-Pacific APAC Coach, 100 Influential Filipino Women in LinkedIn and Coaching Fortune 500 Leaders.
Anda is also chairperson of the ICF Community Relations Committee, which is leading the pro bono coaching advocacy for three frontliner communities in the battle against the pandemic, the teachers of Acacia Elementary School, the health workers of FEU Medical Center and the MSME members of the Rotary Club of Pasig.
She was motivated to be a coach to be on her own professionally, but also because of a desire to help people. As an executive coach, she realized the multiplier effects of enabling the empowerment of a leader through a coaching journey of self-realization and self-mastery. Her mantra succinctly captures the value of coaching: Coaching good leaders to become great coaches, because great leaders lead great teams.
Undeniably, in the time of Covid, we desperately need great leaders to help us find our way. So far, in the midst of the pandemic, Anda has coached about 80 coachees over a span of 480 coaching hours.
Bravo Anda, truly a coaching leader!
Newbie Anne Sznaper’s interest in coaching was sparked by the self-fulfillment and reaffirmation of life’s purpose that she observed in her coach dad (yours truly), particularly after a painful emotional blow to the family’s heart at the onset of Covid last year.
Coaching also dovetailed with her early interest in psychology that she took up in the Ateneo. Psychology, however, took a backseat as she took on a marketing post in MTV for a few years until she settled back as an expat wife and mother, first in Paris, then in Zurich, and now in Seoul. She, however, kept her latent interest in people’s well-being with a UNESCO stint in Paris, active involvement in a not-for-profit organization helping jumpstarting female microentrepreneurs in Seoul, blogging about the life of a Filipina expat wife, and collaborating with Gawad Kalinga to assist typhoon-struck communities in the Philippines.
When she finally completed her coaching course with Benchmark last June under the patient “tough love” mentoring of coach Paui del Rosario during her practicum, her eyes were opened on the perfect fit between psychology and coaching, but more significantly on the “symbiotic benefits of coaching” to both herself as a coach and her coachees. As the magical moment of self-realization occurred in her coachees, she actually found herself equally emotionally engaged in the self-mastery that was achieved. Overcoming her newbie jitters, she has enthusiastically immersed herself in ICF’s advocacy projects.
When asked where she is now as coach, Anne proudly proclaims that she is at a “happy 5 out of 10,” eager to work on her credentials and happily feeling the “positive energy vibes of a community of coaches wanting to help each other.”
Hurrah for ICF Philippine Chapter!
Until next week… One big fight!
Credits: Daily Tribune