Life coaches keeping women professionals on an even keel

Many professional women are engaging life coaches to help them navigate their personal and professional lives.

The author, and founder of The Collective Organisation, Laura Carrocci. Picture: Kelly Barnes

Many professional women are ­engaging life coaches to help them navigate their personal and ­professional lives and develop strategies around managing their careers.

When it comes to engaging, ­developing and supporting professional women, some businesses are recognising how effective one-on-one coaching can be. Deloitte is one example. In 2013 it introduced transition coaching to help retain talented women returning from parental leave.

Increasingly, women are engaging a life coach when they are in, what I like to call, the endurance stage of their careers. They are often in a senior role, working long hours, with caring responsibilities, ageing parents and life feels like an endurance race. They are stretched and certainly do not feel like “leaning in”.

When it comes to achieving greater gender equality in leadership roles, business needs to look at when they are losing their female talent. For many it is in this endurance period that talent is lost or disengaged.

We know the statistics. At the beginning of their careers, men and women are equally repre­sented. However, between the ages of 25 and 44, women’s participation decreases and never fully recovers. It has been recognised that providing women with support in the development of their leadership potential is critical to achieving gender equality in the workplace.

Women experience various barriers to career progression which appear to be either unique or elevated due to their gender. These barriers are a combination of organisational environment and life and career choices.

Life coaching is focused on how we can reach our full potential. It is not solely focused on the development of one particular function or skill, however that can often be the outcome. It is a holistic approach, based on the premise that our professional and personal lives are not separate, but deeply connected. When any area of our wellbeing is challenged, our entire sense of wellbeing is challenged.

Engaging a life coach is ­becoming much more common in Australia. When we look at the statistics it is not hard to see why. According to the Australian Psychological Society, one in four Australians reporting moderate to severe levels of stress. Stress and anxiety can be overwhelming, and time management and poor health are just some of the factors in the modern workplace and home that affect performance and wellbeing.

For professional women, life coaching can be the difference between remaining engaged in the workforce and leaving.

Coaching often focuses on ­issues such as developing a professional identity, identifying ­values, recognising limiting beliefs and having clarity and confidence around one’s own ability. Coaching can assist women to deal with stereotypes and foster confidence to actively seek promotion, mentoring, and to better position themselves for career opportunities. It can also be life-changing when it comes to better integrating work and personal responsibilities, a well-documented concern for many women when it comes to advancing their career. Life coaching reduces stress and anxiety and enhances wellbeing, self-efficiency and self-regulation.

When someone has a greater sense of wellbeing they have a greater sense of personal con­fidence and job satisfaction, as well as being better equipped to deal with change and workplace ­stressors.

To more actively support women, organisations can harness these skills, and by supporting women and men within their organisation to thrive, they will be creating a culture of care.

Laura Carrocci is the founder of The Collective Organisation