Group vs. Team Coaching - Two Powerful Paths to Progress
"Coaching." It's a word we hear a lot in the professional world, often conjuring images of a singular leader and their trusted guide, working one-on-one to unlock potential. And while individual professional coaching is indeed a powerful catalyst for growth (a topic we explored in depth in our post, The Difference Between Coaching and Therapy), the landscape of coaching is far richer and more dynamic than just one-on-one engagements.
As organizations navigate increasingly complex challenges, two distinct, yet equally impactful, forms of collective coaching have emerged: group coaching and team coaching. Both harness the power of shared experience and a facilitated environment, but their ultimate aims and approaches differ significantly. Understanding these distinctions is key to choosing the right path for growth for you or your organization.
The Common Ground: What Group and Team Coaching Share
Before we dive into the nuances, let's acknowledge the core similarities that make both group and team coaching so effective:
Collective Container - Both modalities take place within a facilitated group setting, leveraging the energy and insights that emerge from multiple perspectives.
Expert Facilitation - A skilled coach guides the conversations, poses incisive questions, and creates a brave space for reflection and dialogue. This ensures that the discussions remain productive, forward-focused, and aligned with growth objectives.
Forward-Focused & Goal-Oriented - Neither group nor team coaching dwells on the past. Instead, they are inherently designed to clarify desired future states and make tangible progress toward those goals. The emphasis is always on action, learning, and forward movement.
Learning Through Observation - In both settings, everyone benefits from the insights that emerge, even if a particular discussion is focused on another participant's experience or a specific team challenge. There's a unique power in witnessing others process ideas, overcome obstacles, and share their breakthroughs. As we discussed in our blog post, "The Power of the Peer: Why Group Coaching Amplifies Transformation," this vicarious learning can be a profound accelerator of personal and collective understanding.
The Key Distinction: Individual Growth vs. Collective Performance
While these similarities form a strong foundation, the fundamental difference between group and team coaching lies in their primary focus: the individual's growth versus the collective team's performance.
Group Coaching: Amplifying Individual Journeys
Group coaching is designed to foster the growth and development of each individual participant. While participants may share similar aspirations, roles, or challenges, their coaching goals remain distinct and personal.
Focus on Individual Success - Sessions are structured to explore topics and concepts that will benefit all members, but the application and integration of these insights are geared toward each person's unique professional journey. The coach facilitates discussions that allow individuals to reflect on their own context, clarify their personal goals, and strategize their next steps.
Diverse Constituents - Group coaching cohorts are often intentionally designed to include participants from different organizations, industries, or even geographic locations. This diversity enriches the learning environment, providing a wide array of perspectives and approaches. While group coaching can involve members from the same company or organization, the critical distinction remains that the focus is on the individual's growth and success within their own specific role, rather than their collective function as a team.
Varied Organizing Principles - Group coaching cohorts can be organized around many principles, such as:
Similar Role/Title - Leaders from different institutions holding similar positions (e.g., VPs of Student Affairs, Directors of Marketing).
Career Stage - Professionals preparing for advancement, navigating a career pivot, or honing executive presence.
Shared Interest/Framework - Individuals interested in deepening their understanding of a specific leadership framework (e.g., CliftonStrengths, Enneagram).
The strength of group coaching lies in its ability to provide individual attention within a supportive, diverse community, allowing each participant to gain clarity, build skills, and move forward on their unique path.
Team Coaching: Elevating the Collective
In contrast, team coaching is squarely focused on the collective. Its objective is to enhance the functioning, collaboration, and overall success of an intact team working towards shared goals.
Focus on Team Performance - The coaching engagements revolve around identifying the team's collective goals, addressing systemic pain points, and developing solutions that enhance the team's ability to operate cohesively and achieve its objectives.
Enhancing Team Dynamics - While individual relationships and contributions are certainly explored, it's always through the lens of how they impact the team as a whole. This might involve improving communication patterns, clarifying roles and responsibilities, building psychological safety, or strategizing on how to leverage diverse strengths for collective impact.
Intact Group - Team coaching exclusively involves members of a single, defined team within an organization. This allows the coaching to directly address real-time team dynamics, internal challenges, and shared aspirations in a highly relevant context.
Shared Purpose - The ultimate aim is to enhance the team's ability to work together effectively, navigate change, overcome obstacles, and achieve its mission and strategic priorities.
The Curated Approach: Blending for Deeper Impact
At transform.forward, we often find that the most impactful transformations for organizations occur when we combine the best of both worlds. This is what we call Curated Coaching.
In a curated coaching engagement, we partner with senior leaders to strategize around both individual and team development goals. This might involve providing individual executive coaching to key team members in parallel with dedicated team coaching sessions for the entire group.
For example, a senior leader might want their leadership team to improve cross-functional collaboration (a team coaching objective), while simultaneously wanting individual directors to hone their strategic thinking skills (individual coaching objectives). Our curated approach allows for focused attention on both, ensuring that individual growth directly supports the collective's advancement. The time spent with the broader team is squarely focused on propelling the team forward as a cohesive unit.
Choosing Your Path to Progress
Whether you're an individual leader seeking a supportive community for personal growth, or a team leader looking to support the growth of your team, understanding the distinctions between group and team coaching is an important first step. Both offer powerful pathways to progress, but the right choice depends on where you (or your team) need to grow most.
Ready to explore how coaching can propel your individual leadership journey or elevate your team's performance?
Let's talk about what's possible. Reach out to discuss how our tailored coaching solutions can support your growth.
