This week's Coach in the Spotlight is Zahia Heriche. Zahia was in London with work when she heard about and attended our free Introduction to Life Coaching event. She has since gone on to qualify with The Coaching Academy and is now coaching in the workplace in her role as a Quality, Health & Safety and Environment Auditor where she is able to support and empower her colleagues and team members. She has a strong passion for Leadership Coaching, in particular how this can transform organisations from the top down, leading to an overall positive impact on company results.
I came to London to attend Health and Safety events in order to learn first-hand from the founders of global standards for health and safety at work. Meanwhile, I attended many personal development events with the aim of developing my skills and improving my English at the same time. I can say, it is my greatest opportunity that coincided with The Coaching Academy’s Introduction to Life Coaching event. The event was a breakthrough and changed my entire thinking not only about my job but about my entire life.
Coming from the corporate world and having work experience in the field of Quality, Health & Safety and Environment, I had thoughts about the impact of true leadership on the prosperity and the sustainability of a company and the well-being at work which is reflected in the workers’ loyalty. Helping and empowering leaders who want to develop their leadership style, helping organisations who wish to help their leaders, future leaders, managers, members of their teams gain good qualities and skills, including overcoming self-confidence issues, leading diverse teams and challenging employees, inspiring and helping them grow and thrive, and much more. This is what fuelled my desire and passion along the way to become a world class coach.
Coaching has primarily helped me fixate on my ultimate goal. I took a deep breath; my path became clearer. Being coached myself, I have been able to develop good habits especially regarding health issues (nutrition and exercise habits). I have become more thoughtful about life and the optimal use of my time.
Coaching helped me strengthen my personality by setting my own boundaries based on my knowledge of my own values and respecting the boundaries of others, which I have always done due to my upbringing, but now I do, with more awareness and conviction. It helped me grow by acquiring many great skills allowing me to improve many areas of my life, particularly in terms of relationships. Knowing what I know now about myself and about my environment makes me stronger and resourceful, ready to help, inspire and empower others who are ready to be coached.
The good thing that I appreciated in my journey with The Coaching Academy is the flexibility in coaching training schedules, webinars, live online training sessions (see Simple steps to becoming a Professional Life Coach). Everything can be booked in advance and conveniently. The other thing is that they allow students to attend the peer-to-peer and the coaching skills webinars more than once, which helped me, personally, take notes and comprehend better because it was difficult for me, often at first, due to language barriers. Another point that I want to highlight is the professionalism of the team, including The Coaching Academy trainers, and their continuous support to the students. I admit that it took me longer than planned to qualify due to many obstacles that hindered my path. One of the challenges was the lack of internet connection in the area where I live. I passed months without internet and sometimes with repetitive interruptions. The Coaching Academy helped and supported me throughout my journey, and I am very grateful.
The most rewarding part, firstly is my Life Coaching Diploma qualification which has crowned the years of my training and hard working.
The second part is my assessors’ feedback and constructive comments on my coaching practice and in the same time, the satisfaction of my clients; their testimonials about the positive impact of my coaching on their lives and the benefit they gained from our sessions together.
The third part I aim to get reward from, is successfully helping as many leaders as possible on their leadership journey which will allow them to change their own lives and the lives of their team members for better.
I used and still using many of my coaching skills acquired during my training journey in my work and my daily life. In particular, listening and asking good questions. As HSEQ auditor, I used to ask questions but the good thing I learned and practiced is to ask powerful questions while avoiding offending the client or the person who I speak to. And listen, listen carefully to what has been said.
During my meetings with colleagues or other teams, I make sure to listen to all interventions and then conclude with good decisions, recommendations and action plans. I have built good relationships with many key members.
Working with managers and leaders in our company, gave me the opportunity to practice some coaching techniques to help them set goals for their units and departments and decide the action plans. It is really interesting to see the process effectively working.
Leadership confidence, coaching leaders who are suffering from lack of confidence and imposter syndrome.
I believe that confidence is an important part of being an effective leader. The confidence for a talented and authentic leader plays a crucial role for the benefit of their company and their employees, giving them the space to work to their full potential, improving their efficiency and facilitating their growth within the company. Of course, it will have a positive impact on the company’s results.
Lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem prevent leaders from playing their true role and benefiting from their talents and abilities, which can definitely harm the company and their team members.
Confidence Coaching or Leadership coaching in general provide the opportunity to address the leadership approach, improve personalities by increasing self- awareness and help get to behave and act as a true and effective leader.
I would say just go ahead and sign up. It is an opportunity to attend a free introduction to life coaching provided by The Coaching Academy via one of their competent and exceptional trainers. If you feel attracted to coaching and want to go further, don’t hesitate and jump at the chance. It’s always the right time. and if you think it’s late to change your career, build your own business or add new skills to your current job, I will tell you the French proverb ‘better late than never’. You will learn skills you never thought of and that are of great use at work or in your daily life.
By the way, ask for help when you need it. Don’t be shy. Ask with confidence. There is always someone to help you. We’ll ask you for help one day, don’t worry! I wish you success.
Besides The Coaching Academy’s workbooks, our main resource is their online platform where we can find all the necessary materials for our training once we have enrolled. The e-learning platform is available to students wherever and whenever you are. Day and night, log in as much as you want. This has helped me a lot in organising my learning and measuring my progress. The second valuable resource is the Coaching Academy trainers and mentors; the live training sessions and mentorship sessions; one to one or small set sessions are of great value. Mentors provide answers to our questions. Clarify dark zones, highlight and emphasize coaching best practice, give us some useful tips and hints. Coming to The Coaching Academy Assessors on the course, I resemble them to a mirror. They assess our progress and provide us constructive and insightful feedback for correction and improvement.
Some recommended books such as “Coaching for Performance” of John Whitmore and “The Coaching Manual” of Julie Starr. Many good titles are on the market and it’s advisable to get the ones suggested by our trainers. I couldn’t cite one or two resources; all were important to my journey.
“Thank you Coaching Academy team for your continuous support, thank you for this opportunity. It was an honour for me to be a Coaching Academy student and become a graduate coach!"
The Coaching Academy was established in 1999, and is now the world's largest coaching school.
In that time we have trained over 14,000 people to become life coaches.
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