Seasoned professionals also make mistakes and this is fine. The important aspect is to acknowledge the mistakes and grow as professionals. Even better is to know the common errors and ensure that these are avoided.

What is Group Coaching?

Group coaching is enjoyable to coaches and their clients as it infuses learning experiences with peers. The coach simultaneously works with multiple participants. These sessions include activities and discussions to achieve common objectives while taking advantage of the participants’ collective knowledge, experience, and expertise. Group coaching brings challenges to the participants while keeping them accountable.

Benefits of Group Coaching

Group sessions accommodate multiple people ensuring each individual’s need is met. Participants benefit from shared perspectives and it is cost and time efficient. Group coaching provides several advantages, such as:

  • Accountability
  • Networking
  • Ongoing support
  • Solving complicated problems
  • Team building

Structure of Group Coaching

Group coaching programs start with by defining the objectives of the target audience. These sessions include several methodologies that are aligned towards these goals. A few such methods may include:

  • Interactive sessions like hands-on experiences, discussions, and role play
  • Regular check-ins to assess the program’s efficiency and offer feedback
  • Reviewing and reflecting on various milestones and celebrating achievements
  • Defining the next steps and offering continuous learning opportunities

Mistakes to Avoid with Group Coaching

Nobody can always avoid making mistakes. These form an integral part of your growth and learning journey. The important thing is to learn from these mistakes and convert them in your favor. Mistakes can bring self-awareness and take the steps needed to address these and increase your confidence and efficiency.

Here are five common mistakes with group coaching training programs that must be avoided:

1. Lacking Clarity

One of the first mistakes to avoid is lacking clarity about the expectations, goals, and purpose of the training intervention. Without such clarity, there may be a disparity between the participants’ agenda and outcomes expectations. This may make the training ineffective and may also result in conflicts, confusion, and frustration.

This can be easily avoided by establishing a clear roadmap at the start. It includes defining the boundaries, objectives, responsibilities, and roles of the coach and the participants. This roadmap must be regularly visited to review progress and modification, if necessary.

2. Lacking Outline

Coaching is a profession and a serious business. Another common mistake is not having a clear outline of the leadership group coaching program. While the training needs to be flexible, it must also include an outline using different available tools to make these sessions effective and impactful. However, coaches must not focus on completing every exercise and test and must be flexible to adapt to the flow and stay in sync with the participants. Finally, sticking to the schedule is important to maximize the benefits of these training interventions.

3. Lacking Feedback

Feedback is an important component for improvement, learning, and motivation. However, giving feedback properly is also very important as it can be challenging, emotional, and highly sensitive. Failing to offer constructive and timely feedback means missing out on opportunities to overcome limitations and celebrate achievements. On the other hand, giving poor feedback may result in damaging confidence and trust. Using a constructive approach that is solution-driven and ensuring any issues are addressed immediately can be an effective way to balance feedback.

4. Lacking Follow-Up

Another common mistake is failing to follow-up regularly. Periodic follow-ups require checking-in, reviewing, and reinforcing the actions, learnings, and results achieved during the training sessions. It also encourages accountability, consistency, and long-term sustainability of the coaching process. Failing to follow-up may result in losing track of the progress and addressing further challenges. Additionally, you may miss out on opportunities to adjust, celebrate, and support achievements. Using specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals and action plans for regular follow-up can significantly improve the efficiency of such interventions.

5. Lacking Respect for Boundaries

Boundaries are limits and rules that define appropriate and acceptable aspects of the coaching sessions. These are important to protect the autonomy, dignity, and privacy of the coaches and the participants. Additionally, boundaries prevent conflicts, ethical dilemmas, and dependency issues. Overstepping these boundaries may negatively impact the professionalism, respect, and trust of the coach-coachee relationship. It is important to avoid overstepping the boundaries and each individual must respect the comfort, confidentiality, and consent of other participants.

A well-designed coaching program can bring significant advantages to participants and their organizations. Group coaching offers advantages to each participant who benefits from the expertise and perspective of a diverse group. CoachMantra offers customized group coaching programs. To know more and see how CoachMantra can improve your organizational performance, schedule an appointment today.