How do you enhance your executive coaching practice with peer support?

1 Benefits of peer support

As an executive coach, peer support can offer many benefits. You can receive honest and constructive feedback on your coaching skills and methods from your peers, as well as learn from their own experiences. Furthermore, you can exchange ideas, insights, and best practices with them and access new resources to enrich your coaching knowledge. You can also set goals and commitments with your peers and hold each other accountable for your actions and results. Additionally, you can expand your professional network and connections, create opportunities for collaboration, referral, and mentoring, reduce stress and isolation through sharing feelings, thoughts, and emotions with your peers, and increase confidence, motivation, and satisfaction by receiving and giving encouragement, recognition, and appreciation.

2 Types of peer support

Peer support can take many forms and formats to suit individual preferences, needs, and availability. Peer coaching is a reciprocal and structured process of coaching each other on specific issues or goals. Peer supervision is a reflective and collaborative process of reviewing your coaching practice with one or more peers. You can also join peer learning groups, which are regular and informal meetings of a small group of coaches who share their experiences, insights, and questions. Or, you can join peer communities, which are larger and more diverse groups of coaches who connect online or offline to exchange information, resources, and support. All these types of peer support can help you develop new skills, explore possibilities, examine ethical dilemmas, learn from each other, expand your network, access opportunities, and stay updated on the latest trends in coaching.

3 How to find peer support

Finding peer support can be easy or difficult depending on your location, niche, and network. To help you find peer support, you can start by asking your existing contacts if they know any coaches who might be interested. Additionally, joining professional associations or organizations that represent or serve executive coaches is beneficial as they offer membership services, events, and programs that facilitate peer support. Attending local, regional, or international events that target or attract executive coaches is also a great way to meet new coaches and initiate peer support relationships. Finally, online platforms or tools that enable or support peer support such as social media, forums, blogs, podcasts, or apps can help you find other coaches and join discussions.

4 How to make peer support work

Making peer support work requires some planning, preparation, and commitment from both parties. To ensure success, it is important to clarify expectations and agree on goals, boundaries, type, format, frequency, and duration of sessions. It is also essential to establish trust and rapport between the two parties by respecting each other's differences, strengths, and contributions. Effective communication should be used during sessions by listening actively, asking open-ended questions, giving constructive feedback, and acknowledging feedback. Additionally, progress should be reviewed regularly in order to celebrate achievements, identify areas for improvement, and adjust plans accordingly.

5 How to avoid peer support pitfalls

Peer support can have some pitfalls or challenges that can affect its quality and effectiveness, so it’s important to take steps to avoid or overcome them. You and your peer should focus on your own goals and development, maintain autonomy and responsibility for your own coaching practice and decisions, communicate openly and respectfully, and seek external help if needed. Additionally, it’s important to balance your time and energy, set realistic expectations, and take care of your well-being in order to prevent burnout or fatigue.