Coaching has, in the last two decades, emerged as one of the most powerful approaches to personal growth and leadership development. Given that coaching operates at a level that is deeper than training, coaching is perhaps the only effective mechanism to help bring about lasting personal change.

Fuelled by the growing demand, many countries now have a large community of coaches and well-established coaching networks and forums. It is common for most CEOs in these countries to have one, if not two executive coaches. In fact, coaching as a process has even moved to cover group needs in addition to one-on-one situations.

Indian business finds itself in the throes of unprecedented opportunities. It also finds itself performing under the most competitive and challenging environment - diminishing slack resources, increasing span of control, shortening tenure and little latitude to fail. Senior executives and CEOs are looking for wisdom, hand holding and support to succeed in this environment.

Indian organizations are also realizing the significant limitation of traditional approaches to training and management development in driving performance improvement, especially at leadership levels.

Given that in many cases, performance improvement is a function of personal change, the need for a process to facilitate this change is today looming large in India. This is where coaching comes in.

While the need for coaching is strong, the existing global models cannot be readily transposed to the Indian context on account of certain cultural differences:

• Indians are still wary of seeking professional help to address their personal / professional issues.
  
• The excessive focus on techniques in a coaching relationship as is the case in the western models may not work in India and may need to be strengthened by emphasis on relationships and a deep level of personal insight.
  
• The low context relationship between a coach and client may need to be replaced by a much more active relationship which is based on perceived trust and credibility of the coach.

Executive and Business Coaching, as a profession, is fast catching on for several reasons. The need for senior people to discuss their problems and challenges, has given rise to the demand for coaches who are at par with them and are better placed to understand their dilemmas. The higher one goes to the top, the more lonely does the person feel. CEO's are desperately seeking a sounding board and wanting to partner with someone who can help them navigate their business challenges and realize their full potential. Organizations need to be hand-held and they must provide platforms for coaching engagements. Coaching can help the CEO see the big picture and solve complex business issues.

Incidentally, organizations are constrained on resources and time to have coaches on their own. This has opened up a great deal of scope to seek for an external coach or someone who has the expertise to deal and manage various issues. Business leaders who have undergone the ups and downs of business can turn out to be an executive and business coach. Organizations have also felt the need to imbibe a coaching culture which will develop managers to become more coaching oriented in their functioning style.

Therefore, managers are expected to wear the coaching hat more often than their managerial hat.

Coaching in India must have broad guidelines of a formalized process to bring about a more interactive relationship and high result orientation based on mutual trust and confidentiality. The approach must be that of 'helping' rather than 'facilitating'. Professional boundaries need to be established, yet flexible without compromising on ethics. To have a broad global application, coaching in India must provide clarity and insights to individuals to adapt & lead, while retaining the basic texture of our culture.

In other words, even as we attempt to establish coaching as a formal and structured helping relationship we need to ensure that in the Indian context there is a strong relationship orientation, trust, credibility and flexibility in the coaching process. We also need to ensure that the model has a certain universal applicability and can be transported across borders.