Internal coaches are a valuable and less costly means of coaching individuals and teams inside the organization. Although, internal coaching is cost effective, it cannot be as effective as external coaching where political, confidential and very personal, circumstances are a concern. Having said that, I believe internal coaches can be very effective as team coaches. Also, individual coaching is appropriate for mid to lower level leaders when the coaching is short-term and less personal.

Let’s first discuss some general principles for internal coaches to be effective and valuable. The coach must;
1. Be willing to be a coach and dedicate the time to learn coaching as well as be a coach.
2. Be trained by certified professional coaches.
3. Experience coaching themselves.
4. Be mentored by a professional coach.
5. Be free of any management pressure to divulge any confidential information.
6. Freed-up of other responsibilities in order to coach.
7. Be committed to ongoing learning about coaching.

Senior leaders must completely support the internal coaches and their efforts. Management can ease into the internal coaching concept without a high initial investment. Coaches can start coaching smaller project teams and grow to helping other larger teams become high performance teams. Coaches can start coaching individual managers at a lower level and then move up the ladder to higher levels as their experience and confidence grows.