Coaching is a development journey that begins with a clear objective defined together with the coach. It helps individuals explore their thinking patterns, develop new behaviours and navigate their professional environment with greater awareness.
Rather than providing predefined solutions, coaching uses structured dialogue to help people activate their own resources while strengthening critical thinking, autonomy, personal accountability and self-awareness within the context in which they work.
How Can Managers Become More Effective in Everyday Work, Not Just Inspirational?
According to Gartner’s 2026 survey, 47% of managers report that more is expected of them today than in the past. The report also found that only 39% of employees consider their manager effective at providing clear feedback, while only 41% feel they receive meaningful support in prioritising their work.
Behind requests for development in leadership, feedback, delegation and conflict management lies a very practical need that HR Business Partners and C-Level leaders encounter every day: managers who can translate organisational expectations into behaviours that genuinely support their teams.
How Does a Visual Coaching Session Work?
A Visual Coaching session is a working space where thoughts, conversations and decisions take visual form.
During the session, I use drawing and visual representations to make visible the content that emerges: key words, connections, relational dynamics and future scenarios.
This allows people to step outside their immediate perspective and observe more clearly what often remains implicit. Together, we make visible cognitive styles, habits and recurring patterns, creating space for new possibilities of action.
The process alternates between dialogue and visual exploration. The result is greater awareness and a tangible record of the journey, which can be revisited and used long after the session itself.
Visual Coaching is a direct expression of the Visual Psychology® Method, created by Federica Tabone, Organisational Psychologist and Graphic Recorder.
Soft Skills in Coaching
Soft skills play an increasingly central role in today’s workplace.
Research published by the Financial Times, which has tracked the growing importance of social skills in the labour market since the 1980s, shows that organisations increasingly value relational, communication and decision-making capabilities.
In practical terms, this means being able to collaborate effectively, manage conflict, read the context, make decisions despite uncertainty and adapt one’s communication style to different situations.
Coaching helps individuals observe their thinking patterns, identify habitual behaviours and evaluate their effectiveness or limitations. This is where meaningful work on soft skills begins.
The Most Requested Soft Skills for Better Collaboration
Certain transferable skills have a direct impact on the quality of collaboration and professional relationships.
Feedback
Learning to receive feedback without becoming defensive, providing clear and useful feedback, distinguishing judgement from observation and developing the ability to accurately observe what is happening.
Conflict Management
Remaining present in conflict without avoiding it or escalating it, recognising one’s preferred conflict style, identifying recurring patterns in conflict situations and developing the skills needed to de-escalate them.
Collaboration
Moving beyond individualistic approaches, understanding why collaboration is a long-term investment, recognising what it means to build shared outcomes and balancing individual benefit with collective success.
Soft Skills for Navigating Change and Uncertainty
When the context changes, certain skills become even more crucial.
Decision-Making
Conducting appropriate analysis based on reliable information, balancing intuition and analysis, defining clear decision criteria and taking responsibility for decisions while being able to explain the rationale behind them.
Managing Uncertainty
Making decisions with incomplete information, tolerating ambiguity, developing multiple scenarios, approaching problems through repeatable processes and recognising connections, causes and effects beyond a linear interpretation of events.
Trust
Exploring personal consistency and reliability, understanding what generates suspicion and becoming more aware of one’s existing capabilities.
Critical Thinking and Decision-Making Skills
Coaching also helps you develop the skills that support reading, analysis, and sound reasoning.
Critical Thinking
Questioning one’s own assumptions and those of others through a clear logical framework, identifying the principles underlying behaviours, applying cause-and-effect reasoning, isolating variables and constants and constructing both a thesis and an antithesis.
Decision-Making
Conducting sound analysis, balancing intuition with data, establishing decision criteria and taking responsibility for choices with greater clarity and confidence.
Relational and Emotional Intelligence Skills
Interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence have a direct impact on the way we communicate, listen, and handle pressure.
Effective Communication
Developing clarity and structure in thinking, adapting messages to different audiences and contexts, and communicating effectively across multiple channels, both in person and online.
Active Listening
Suspending judgement, recognising implicit meanings and unspoken elements, asking exploratory questions rather than leading ones and identifying what is being taken for granted in a conversation.
Emotional Intelligence
Recognising one’s emotions and understanding how behaviours affect others, using emotions as information, transforming them into adaptive behaviours, managing stress, frustration and decision-related anxiety while maintaining clarity under pressure.
Leadership and Team Coordination Skills
Coaching can also support the development of leadership and coordination skills.
Autonomy and Accountability
Moving from execution to ownership, calibrating escalation processes, increasing awareness of personal strengths, learning quickly and letting go of outdated patterns in order to adapt effectively.
Leadership
Influencing without formal authority, taking a position, recognising needs and interests in conversations, interpreting what is happening, creating meaning during change and building useful narratives.
Metacognitive and Self-Awareness Skills
Certain skills help us understand not only what we do, but also how we think and interpret reality.
Self-Awareness
Recognising emotional states, triggers and automatic reactions, distinguishing facts from interpretations and understanding recurring behavioural patterns such as avoidance, control or people-pleasing.
Metacognition
Observing one’s own thinking while thinking, recognising cognitive biases, implicit beliefs and interpretative filters that influence decisions, relationships and professional behaviours.
Systems Thinking
Understanding the connections between people, context, communication and organisational dynamics, moving beyond linear explanations to appreciate interdependencies.
Soft Skills for Creativity, Innovation and Problem Solving
Coaching can also be helpful when you need to develop flexibility, innovation, and the ability to break out of habitual patterns.
Innovation
Challenging established approaches, experimenting with alternative methods and transforming ideas and insights into actions that can be applied in the workplace.
Continuous Learning
Learning rapidly, unlearning outdated patterns, adapting to changing contexts and integrating new tools, languages and ways of working.
Lateral Thinking
Viewing problems from different perspectives, building multiple scenarios, exploring non-obvious solutions, moving beyond repetitive decision-making habits and using dialogue as an opportunity for growth and development.
If you would like to develop soft skills in a structured and visible way, Visual Coaching can offer a practical space for growth and development.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a business coach, a life coach and a psychologist?
A business coach focuses on professional performance objectives, helping managers and entrepreneurs make decisions, improve results and develop specific competencies.
A life coach works on broader areas of personal life, helping individuals clarify goals and activate desired changes without exploring psychological mechanisms or clinical dimensions in depth. Both typically operate through coaching-specific training and certification pathways, often building on previous professional experience in different sectors.
Lo psicologo, invece, è tale per un percorso universitario e professionale strutturato e regolamentato, composto da cinque anni di formazione, tirocinio professionalizzante ed esame di Stato. Questo percorso definisce in modo preciso la presa in carico di persone e gruppi rispetto ai processi cognitivi, emotivi e relazionali, e consente di utilizzare le teorie psicologiche in modo integrato per offrire una lettura approfondita delle situazioni.
A psychologist, by contrast, follows a structured and regulated academic and professional pathway that includes university education, supervised professional practice and state qualifications. This training provides a comprehensive understanding of cognitive, emotional and relational processes and allows psychological theories to be applied in an integrated manner. In the case of Organisational Psychologists such as Federica Tabone, the focus remains on the professional context, examining the mechanisms that influence decisions, behaviours and group dynamics while maintaining clear boundaries from personal or clinical domains. Registration with the professional body also implies adherence to a formal code of ethics and professional accountability.
What is the difference between coaching and psychotherapy?
Coaching is oriented towards the present and the future. It focuses on specific goals, often related to performance, decision-making or personal and professional development.
Psychotherapy is a clinical intervention conducted by a qualified psychotherapist with specialist training. It addresses psychological distress, emotional difficulties, symptoms and deeper personal dynamics that may originate in an individual’s history.
In summary, coaching supports goal achievement and personal growth, while psychotherapy addresses psychological suffering and patterns that may limit wellbeing.
What is the difference between mentoring and coaching?
Coaching is an introspective process focused on helping individuals generate their own insights, clarify objectives and develop new possibilities for action. The coach is an expert in the process rather than the content.
Mentoring is based on direct experience. A mentor shares knowledge, strategies and practical guidance developed throughout their professional career.
In coaching, answers emerge from the individual. In mentoring, they come from the experience of someone who has already faced similar situations.
Should I choose coaching or a psychologist?
It depends on the nature of the objective and the situation the individual is facing.
Coaching is suitable when the goal is to develop competencies, make decisions, improve performance or achieve specific objectives.
A psychologist offers a deeper understanding of the cognitive, emotional and relational processes that influence behaviours and choices and can be particularly valuable when recurring difficulties or persistent patterns are present.
In short, coaching helps mobilize resources and actions; a psychologist also helps you gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that drive them.
What is the difference between an Organisational Psychologist and a psychotherapist?
An Organisational Psychologist focuses on people in professional settings, working on performance, organisational wellbeing, leadership, communication, decision-making and team effectiveness.
A psychotherapist focuses on the assessment and treatment of psychological distress and emotional suffering through specialised clinical training.
In summary, the Organisational Psychologist focuses on how people function within work and professional relationships, while the psychotherapist focuses on psychological wellbeing at a deeper personal level.
When should I consult an Organisational Psychologist?
When the challenges you are facing are connected to professional contexts and workplace dynamics, such as managing a team, moving into a leadership role, navigating organisational change, addressing communication difficulties or improving professional effectiveness.
The Organisational psychologist helps people understand what is happening not only at the individual level, but also within relationships and organizational systems, providing tools to navigate these situations with greater clarity and act more effectively.
Who can practise coaching?
Coaching is not a legally regulated profession in many countries. It is typically practised by professionals who have completed specific coaching training and certification programmes and who develop expertise in facilitation, listening and process management.
There are also standards and professional organizations that promote quality and professionalism in the practice of coaching.
Can a psychologist provide coaching?
Yes. Psychologists can integrate coaching tools and approaches into their work while remaining grounded in psychological theory and methodology.
Organisational Psychologists, in particular, have completed dedicated university training focused on organisational contexts and workplace dynamics. As regulated professionals, they must adhere to professional and ethical standards that define responsibilities, boundaries and safeguards for individuals.
When appropriate, psychologists also collaborate with other specialists, such as psychotherapists, when needs arise that require more clinically oriented support.