As I write this essay, it is nine months after the Coronavirus pandemic first escalated in the U.S. and I am looking forward to having 2020 behind us. And yet, it is also early December and the season of gratitude is upon us. Gratefulness for me tends to find a straight line to the people in my life that have influenced me. When I think about these people, there is one specific group that comes to mind: my coaches.

In my case, it was my summer swim coach from my pre-teen years that looms large as a great coach, teaching me how to look inward at the most intense moments and block out the noise around me to get to the finish line. My high school field hockey coach helped me to understand that I was not going to be the fastest player on the field or the one with the most goals, but that I had a gift for bringing a team together and motivating them that was just as important to our collective goal. These were not one-time lessons but themes that were constantly worked and revisited.

In my late twenties, I was lucky to be reintroduced to coaching in the context of career and life coaching at a time that I was transitioning from a career in the arts to one in public service. My coach worked with me diligently during this period on using my fears of “not knowing everything” or being “less experienced than” as a source of motivation rather than one that kept me frozen. As a new mother, she taught me how to focus on my relationship with my husband in the newness of life with a young child, to stay with the long game of marriage while running the short game of parenting. In the months leading up to her passing in 2014, she used her own experience to work with me on bringing authentic truth to my own relationships. These were not easy lessons to learn but the coaching dynamic helped me to work on them intentionally and integrate them overtime for my personal growth.

The lessons from coaching have been transformative even when seemingly small. Leadership training is a fixture in many companies with young professionals but how often is someone held accountable on a weekly or monthly basis to his or her goals? My business coach in my thirties worked with me on networking with intention as a weekly assignment, which seemed silly at first but once established as a regular habit has become one of my favorite parts of professional life. I also learned how to fully support a struggling manager in a way that transformed both of our careers, that ambition for me involves bringing those around me along with me rather than leaving them behind. I am consistently working with my coach to orient toward my purpose, use my strengths, and build my skills. Could I do this work in a mentorship program or leadership training? Yes. But the constant accountability that comes with regular coaching has been a gift like no other.

Coaching in the business world is typically the domain of the senior executive, offered as part of an employment package to help them emerge to their full potential as leaders, taking a company to new heights. But what if coaching were more widely used as a recruitment and training tool for the newest employees, helping them work through goal-setting and perspective-shifting from the earliest days of their careers?

One of the guiding ideas for Silicon Valley coaching guru Bill Campbell, memorialized in the book Trillion Dollar Coach, was that “the traits that make a person coachable include honesty and humility, the willingness to persevere and work hard, and a constant openness to learning.” Imagine if this door were open to new employees in your firm on day one. Imagine the potential for these employees not only to impact your firm but to address the challenges that we face in real estate and other industries today with this kind consistent accountability to purpose and goals being taken on over the course of a substantial career. The potential for transformation through coaching is enormous.

Chelsea Rao,
Senior Vice President, Norton Scott LLC
Member, ULI Washington Advisory Board

In ULI Washington’s new Leadership Insights column, ULI Washington will regularly feature member leader’s thoughts and insights as we adjust personally and professional to a “new normal.”