Why coaching and what’s your background?
Throughout my career as an engineer, leader, and (now) coach, I’ve experienced multiple significant changes — changing cultures (from England to Germany), changing company sizes (from small local agencies to large international corporations), types (freelance to salaried), and changing roles (individual contributor to manager). With each transition I faced new challenges and gained new experiences and methods as I adapted & grew.
During the transition into my first management role, I was lucky enough to have my own career coach. Having someone I could talk to and explore the topics in my mind each week was a huge help, and it opened up a whole new world of coaching (which I had quite honestly previously dismissed as “questionable new age stuff”).
With that experience began my fascination with coaching, especially as I could see how powerful coaching skills could be in my role as a leader. I also came to realise just how much I enjoyed working with others as they navigated similar career challenges & transitions. However, as anyone can call themselves a coach, I wanted to actually make sure I had the foundational knowledge myself before coaching others. For this reason I enrolled in the Advanced Coaching Certification Programme from BeCoach-Academy and I am now working towards my PCC (Professional Certified Coach) from the ICF (International Coaching Federation), who are considered the gold-standard in coaching.