Empowerment Coaching: What Is It & What’s Involved?

In the journey toward self-improvement, empowerment coaching helps women harness their inner strength, overcome challenges, and take control of their destinies. Discover how working with an empowerment coach will take you to unprecedented heights of accomplishment and fulfillment.

What Is an Empowerment Coach?

An empowerment coach helps clients develop in ways that enable them to feel more empowered. That can mean being empowered at work, school, in the family, with friends, etc. Specifically, an empowerment coach supports clients to feel more powerful, in control, and able to manifest whatever they want or need in life.

Empowerment coaching aims to show clients how to nurture their confidence and create a fulfilling life unhindered by self-doubt. While anyone can benefit from working with this type of coach, this article discusses the subsector of women’s empowerment coaching, because it is one of the most popular contexts for this coaching focus, and we’d be remiss not to explain it.

What Does an Empowerment Coach Do?

What an empowerment coach does ultimately depends on each client’s needs and goals. However, common topics covered in this type of coaching engagement include:

• Setting goals: An empowerment coach guides clients in setting realistic and achievable goals. They provide structure and direction, helping clients clarify their ambitions and create a step-by-step plan to reach them.
• Self-discovery: Through various exercises and conversations, an empowerment coach assists clients in identifying their values, passions, strengths, and weaknesses to uncover their true potential.
• Managing challenges: Empowerment coaching equips clients with the tools and strategies to overcome obstacles. Coaches provide support during tough times and help clients see challenges as opportunities for growth.
• Building confidence: By challenging self-limiting beliefs and fostering positive self-talk, coaching helps clients build self-confidence. Coaches encourage clients to step out of their comfort zones and pursue goals they might have previously thought impossible.
• Accountability: A coach serves as an accountability partner, ensuring clients stick to their commitments and take consistent action toward their goals.
• Celebrations: Recognizing progress and celebrating achievements is a vital part of the empowerment coaching process. Coaches celebrate clients’ successes, big and small, fostering a sense of accomplishment and boosting morale.
• Consistency: In a general sense, coaching encourages clients to establish routines and habits that align with their goals and values.
• Personal development: Coaches guide clients through the continuous process of personal development by providing resources, strategies, and feedback. This helps clients increase self-awareness, develop new habits, and live a more aligned life at work and home. 
• Promoting self-love: Through empowerment coaching, clients learn to cultivate a healthy relationship with themselves, which is foundational for personal growth and success.

​​It’s worth noting that while all empowerment coaches are forms of life coaches, not all life coaches are empowerment coaches. An empowerment coach specifically works on boosting self-confidence and putting each client in the driver’s seat of their life. At a)plan, all our coaches are trained in our “whole-person coaching” approach which infuses empowerment work into every coaching focus.

The Importance: Why Hire a Women’s Empowerment Coach?

All humans should have the privilege of feeling empowered. So of course, this resource is not just for women. That said, there is a reason women often leverage this type of coaching. Whether they be executives, moms, managers, or others, empowerment may be life-changing in any number of contexts.

According to McKinsey, women—especially those in marginalized groups—rarely feel empowered to advocate for themselves and their needs within the workplace. A recent study reveals a significant impact in the workplace experiences of women from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, those identifying as LGBTQ+, or those with disabilities.

Some findings include:

Latinas and Black women report less managerial support for career development and lower levels of psychological safety at work.

Asian and Black women often lack strong allies within their teams and are less likely to receive sponsorship actions from senior colleagues, such as advocacy for compensation increases or praise for their skills.

Latinas and Asian women frequently encounter comments about their culture or nationality, contributing to a sense of otherness.

LGBTQ+ women and women with disabilities experience more microaggressions, including demeaning comments about their appearance or suggestions that they should alter their behavior.

Women with disabilities face additional challenges, as their competence is often undermined, their judgment questioned, and their ideas credited to colleagues.

If these are the challenges women face today, what resources and solutions are we deploying to make tomorrow better? For many women, finding such resources (or relying on their employer to provide some) is the first step to feeling truly empowered to create the life or career they want. Specifically, female empowerment coaching is a solution to remedy some of these challenges by giving women the support they need to develop their self-confidence and communication skills.

What to Expect from Female Empowerment Coaching

A women’s empowerment coach creates a supportive and accepting space where their only agenda is your success and fulfillment. Coaching sessions may be used for a variety of purposes, such as practicing skills, role-playing scenarios, unpacking challenges, and overcoming self-doubt. It is what you make it.

Female empowerment coaching from a)plan is designed to meet you wherever you are in life and help you shape your future. We always start with the fundamentals: what do you really want? Then, through weekly virtual coaching sessions, unlimited chat support, development exercises, progress tracking, and innovative resources—including our brand new tech platform, a)plan 2.0—clients receive consistent coaching for impactful results.

Feel Empowered with an a)plan Coach

At a)plan, we’ve developed a unique system to match you with the perfect empowerment coach. This process begins with understanding who you are and what you’re looking for in a coach. We take into consideration your personal goals, challenges, lifestyle, and preferences. 

Based on your responses, we match you with three coaches who specialize in the areas you want to focus on. Our roster of 60+ coaches have all been pre-vetted and are held to rigorous standards and experience requirements. We are confident you’ll find the right coach for you at a)plan.  

Take our coach matching survey today and find your perfect coach—someone who can guide you, challenge you, support you, and ultimately help you realize your full potential.