Level-up your career with coaching

Padma WarriorMay 10, 2022

I will get straight to the point - everyone needs and deserves a coach for their career development. Period.Reflecting back, I wish I had access to coaching during the early to mid-level stages of my career. Too often, companies only invest in executive coaching for C-suite executives. I was fortunate enough to work with some incredible coaches when I was CTO at Cisco. While this is helpful on occasion, more often than not, by the time people get to the C-suite, they have already learned to handle the complexity of career growth through experiential trial and error. People need coaching the most when they are still growing and aspiring to get to the top. Career coaching is inaccessible when people need it the most! Don’t let that discourage you. You should never stop learning and growing. Instead of waiting for your company to invest in reskilling or upskilling, seek the support you need right now and see if your organization will reimburse you. As a leader, I try to make coaching available to all of my team members. But the reason companies often limit exec coaching to the C-suite is because of the cost and time involved. It is expensive to provide access to one on one coaching for every manager and individual contributor inside a company. Furthermore, there are not enough experts to coach the over 88 million professionals working in the U.S., which makes up 59.8 percent of the total workforce in the U.S alone.

Why do you need a career coach?

Career coaches are experts who help and guide our professional growth. They specialize in helping us improve certain aspects of our career growth, such as:

How do I lead with confidence?
How do I lead with empathy?
How do I communicate with clarity?
How do I motivate my team?

While each of us may choose a different skill set that we want to improve, there are some universal work skills like those listed above. We can all aim to be better at these types of skills. Unfortunately, none of these skills are taught at colleges and universities. Contrary to popular belief, the most important career learning starts AFTER we graduate from school and start working. In addition, not everyone needs to follow a traditional path of attending prestigious colleges to have a great career. There are many paths to success and opportunities. That is why I strongly believe that EVERYONE deserves and should have access to career coaches - not just the C-suite. By the way, a coach is very different from a mentor - and that is a topic for another blog :-) I have a lot to share with you on this and would love to hear your insights as well. Now back to the topic at hand.

How do you choose a coach?

Choosing a coach can be tricky and requires a lot of time and money. As this HBR article points out, it can get expensive to “try” different coaches until you find the exact match, as coaches charge $1,000 or more for sessions ranging from as little as 30 minutes. On top of that, it can be difficult to curate the coaches and coaching we need. Often we rely on word-of-mouth referrals - which is perhaps not the most optimum way of selecting a coach. Wouldn’t it be great if someone created a list of the best career coaches? And given that most great coaches are very busy people already, how do we scale their coaching and make it more accessible to everyone?

When do you need a career coach?

Well - literally right now. Career coaching is almost always valuable. But it may be especially valuable when:

You just got promoted or want to get promoted - and maybe you are searching the internet for advice on how you can be seen as a more confident leader? Confidence inspires followership, but it is quite normal for even the most seasoned leaders to have self-doubts and go through what experts call the impostor syndrome. Listen to what Adam Grant and Luvvie Jones have to say about that.
You want to be an empathetic leader - especially post-Covid when we are still trying to come to terms with the world around us. Do you wish you understood how to communicate and show more empathy towards your peers and team members? There is a lot of data that shows people quit people - not companies. How do you, as a leader, be the one who everyone wants to follow?
You are searching for a new job - maybe you are tired of your current job, or maybe you realized it's not the best fit for you. Instead of just scrolling LinkedIn looking for openings, invest in your own upskilling with a coach. Especially if you are looking for a growth opportunity.

Ultimately, though, a career coach can be helpful no matter where you are in your career. And that’s because:

The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.

I’ve been saying this for many years, and millions of people agree with me! In fact, this quote went viral and has been promoted across every social media platform. I’m so proud every time I see the beautiful templates people create to share this thought. It's our ability to learn quickly and contribute quickly that matters the most for career growth. One of the things I tell people these days is that there is no perfect fit when you're looking for the next big thing to do. You have to take opportunities and make an opportunity fit for you rather than the other way around. Given that so much about work itself changed in the last few years with the pandemic and now slow return to “normal” - now is the right time to focus on upskilling and reskilling. My "Future of Work: Trends 2022" whitepaper provides more details on how business and leadership are changing. You can join me to discuss this more in my free book club - I’d love to hear your insights.

Is networking better than coaching?

Yes and no. Just networking and getting people’s contact information isn’t enough. What is powerful, however, is active peer-to-peer learning. In my own career, I learned a ton from my peers, especially those from outside of tech, in fields like sales, marketing, finance, and even in other industries. According to this report, 55% of employees first turn to their peers to learn new skills. Peer-to-peer learning can be a powerful development tool that breaks through some common barriers to skill-building, and it has other benefits as well. Peer learning is safe and doesn’t come with any of the judgment associated with instructional learning. Sharing experiences helps us gain confidence as we realize we are not alone. How often have you turned to a colleague or friend and said, “OMG, I went through that same thing with my manager - what did you do? How did you handle it?” Active reflection and identifying with peers can boost our ability to see things in a new light - which is key to learning.

How can Fable help?

I am a big believer in lifelong learning. At Fable, we thought long and hard about how to democratize career coaching and make it accessible and affordable to everyone - not just the C-suite. With that in mind, we are excited to launch Fable career development clubs! We wanted to combine the best of both worlds: professional coaches and peer learning. So we are creating cohort communities that will go through a 3-month program with an acclaimed coach, reading and learning from 3 great books on a topic important to future leaders. Not only do you get to learn from the books, but you are guided by a reputable coach who’s an expert on their topic (many of whom have literally written the book!). And as you read with your fellow club members, you learn from peers in every industry.In a nutshell, Fable career development clubs = Professional coaching + Peer-peer learning.

What do you get from a Fable Career Development Club?

A 3-month program with a world-class coach
Exclusive events with global leaders and subject matter experts where you can interact and ask questions
Three essential books and accompanying workbooks packed with actionable exercises to apply leadership lessons to your own organization
A community where you can belong and learn from peers in a safe environment
A digital badge to celebrate your new skills

Invest in yourself and take control of your career development. Don't wait for someone else to tell you you need a coach. Ask your manager and company to reimburse you - to invest in your upskilling.

Join a Fable Career Development Club today!

Padma Warrior