The Secret Sauce of Successful Startups: Professional Coaching

The demand for professional coaching services is seeing a significant rise in recent years in India. Traditionally, coaching was restricted to senior leaders in established corporates and in domains like leadership development and achieving goals.

Several areas are gaining traction within the Indian coaching ecosystem.

Here is my experience in 3 emerging areas of professional coaching:

Entrepreneurship Coaching: India is witnessing a remarkable surge in entrepreneurial activity. The start-up founders face many challenges in ideation, execution, scaling, and people management.

As a support to entrepreneurs, I have seen my clients find purpose in their business, and redefine their business strategies by discarding redundant processes. Regular sessions with a coach allow them to quickly get back to the business agenda even if they fail and saves invaluable time and investment.

Diversity and Inclusion Coaching: Organizations are increasingly recognizing the need and importance of diversity and inclusion (D&I) in fostering creativity and enhancing productivity.

I work with leaders to help them cultivate inclusive mindsets. While they may be aware of their behaviour in official settings, a session allows them to explore the whys, underlying emotions, beliefs and reasons, helping them become aware of even unconscious biases so that they can take corrective measures.

As inclusion initiatives are backed by the top management, it becomes critical for the client to find their natural way to accept all voices on the table for the betterment of the organization.

Well-being Coaching: Most professionals deal with different levels of stress, anxiety, and burnout. It is a growing concern for organizations as leads to low productivity and high attrition. Clients often vent out their emotions and feelings in sessions, and then can rationally find out what is meaningful for them and plan actions accordingly.

Oftentimes, there is an impact of the office issues on their personal life and vice versa. A coach can support individuals in both their personal and professional life.  

The landscape of professional coaching in India is changing with coaching being used in new areas. Coaches are playing a pivotal role in empowering individuals with positive psychology and organizations are finding the effectiveness of the coaching approach across diverse domains.

Sunny is founder at Sunny Connect, a firm specialising in curating programs for 'Conscious Leadership Development 'and can be reached at coach@sunnyconnect.in