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I apologize in advance to every coach who will be offended by this post. I know some of you will feel personally attacked, but if your coach training has taught you anything, you should know that it’s not personal.
The following letter has been edited and I’ve removed the names of specific coach training programs as well as the identity of the writer.
Hello, Ruth Ann.
I am very interested in the coaching profession, but am finding it difficult to find the funding to allow me to start. Some schools offer payment plans, but they are very expensive ($500 per month) and are unaffordable to me at this time. Other programs offer some kind of student loan, but their programs consist of intensives and travel, which add more to the cost. I have a young family, and traveling long distances would be very difficult.
I am interested in [name of training program] specifically, because of their reputation, accessibility, and convenience, but again their payment plan sucks! I was wondering of you knew of any way to find scholarships, student loans, or other funding options to pay for coaching programs?
It is my opinion that if this profession wants to hit mainstream, someone is gonna have to offer some kind of funding, loan, or scholarship program to assist people like me. Not everyone has $3000- $14,000 lying around to pay for it. So until I find something, I will remain patient and faithful. I will find a way. Any suggestions? I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks.
(Insert sound effect here of Ruth Ann’s head exploding)
I get requests like this all the time, because I have given large grants for coaching-related research, and I’ve funded a number of coaching-related philanthropies.
My answer is always in the form of a question, followed by another question, and another.
What kind of coach do you want to be? What kind of coaching work to you want to do? Why do you think expensive training and certification are required to achieve your goals? Are they necessary right now, or could you start on a low-or-no-cost path today to begin the journey to your desired destination?
I first heard about the field of “executive coaching” when I was a working journalist. I knew that top managers, entrepreneurs, and leaders engaged professional coaches to help them maximize their effectiveness, achieve their goals, advance their skills.
Later, as the chair of the board of a not-for-profit organization that hired a professional coach to serve the members, I experienced a personal coaching session myself. Curious, I began looking into “this thing called coaching.”
I attended conferences, joined coaching organizations, began working with coaches. A journalist at heart, I couldn’t help asking questions, digging, finding out more, looking for the who-what-where-when-why-how of coaching. What I discovered was, to quote Gertrude Stein, there is no ‘there’ there.
There’s no such thing as “coaching central,” no single recognized source or authority, no governing body, no one standard of certification or licensing, no agreement among the varying factions and schools and philosophies about something as simple as a definition of coaching, much less who “is” a coach, or what constitutes “good” coaching.
What I found: there are hundreds – repeat, HUNDREDS – of different certifications. There are dozens of coach training programs, certificate programs, degree programs. It’s possible to get a Ph.D. in coaching and not be “certified.” It’s possible to be a grammar school dropout and be “certified.” Different countries have different ideas about coaching. Different cultures have different ideas about coaches. It behooves the potential student to investigate thoroughly – why should I take THIS training? Is this specific training REQUIRED for what I want to do as a coach? Where does my money go? What alternatives can give me what I need to get where I want to go? Am I getting the runaround when I ask these questions?
Many people think of “schools” as benign nonprofit entitites, perhaps government-sponsored or government-approved. They are shocked to discover that many coach training entities are for-profit businesses. No coaching certification programs that I know of are associated with any U.S. government standard for coaching. [It may be different in other countries.] You’ll find some “accredited” schools are in fact merely licensed by a government agency as a business, not recognized for meeting the academic standards of an educational institution. Many coach training schools are ‚Äúaccredited” only by a trade organization. The trade organization creates its own standard for certification, then accredits schools to teach to that standard, and the wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round. A school may well be accredited, but that doesn’t mean “meets a government-approved standard for coaching education.”
One coach told me that her certification was “the” standard “because it’s the only one accepted for getting [a specific local government contract]. If you want a contract with [a specific local government] then you need that certification. In other words, that organization convinced some local lawmakers to accept their certification as the standard. The lawmakers probably asked, “How can we make sure that the coaches we hire are not charlatans?” “How do we legislators cover our hindquarters?”) So they chose to accept the standards of a particular trade organization. Mission accomplished: politician’s backside covered, and bragging rights for that private trade group and its business. And that’s how the world works – at least, that’s how it worked before people started looking harder at how lawmakers decide who gets the goodies.
What kind of coach do you want to be? What kind of coaching work do you want to do? What is REQUIRED in order to achieve those ends?
Research is showing that most clients don’t care about a coach’s certification. They care about the coaching relationship and the results.
Don’t get me wrong: I think professional coaches need to study and learn coaching skills. I think they need to practice those skills. I think they need the guidance and mentoring of experienced, skilled coaches. I think they need to be accountable and responsible for their conduct as coaches, adhering to a code of ethics, willing to allow others to look over their professional shoulder.
I’m just not convinced there’s any single “right way” to do that or that it should necessarily cost thousands of dollars. Coaching is largely unregulated. It’s not universally considered a “profession,” and certainly, not everyone who coaches is professional. Some groups with special interests (monetary and philosophical) would like that to change. My own certification is from the International Association of Coaching, and I only chose to become certified because I served on the IAC’s Board of Governors. As a condition of board service, they required me to become IAC certified, which seemed reasonable. It was not expensive and no formal schooling was required. I had to pass a written test and prove to trained observers that I could coach according to their methods. The preparation, practice, and study certainly made me a better coach. But I saw some coaches “fail” the certification test on the day I “passed,” and trust me, some of them were and are good coaches. They already had thriving practices. Their clients love them and they get results, and the happy clients don’t care if their coach passed some arbitrary test. (All coaching certification tests are arbitrary, subjective, judged by fallible humans.)
Should you pay thousands of dollars for your coach training and certification? That depends on many factors. Right now, in my opinion, it’s simply not necessary. Thousands of people have a vested, monetary, business interest in promoting and perpetuating their own brand of coaching. For many well-meaning people, the coach training business is a righteous livelihood that provides monetary and spiritual rewards. Coach training and education is always “worth it” in terms of your skill-building, experience, and confidence. But how much time and money will you spend? Where will you spend it?
If you can afford the time and money, great! Get dozens of certifications! Join every coaching organization! Do intensives, workshops, mentor coaching! Buy every book! Take every teleclass! But if money is an object, why would you go into debt to meet an arbitrary and optional standard when it is entirely possible to acquire the skills without racking up the bills?
I welcome your comments – if I’m mistaken on the facts, I’ll make immediate corrections. If you have further suggestions for the aspiring coach, I’ll be delighted to post them.
After all, I like to think of myself as “coachable,” and I promise I’ll only judge your reasoning, not your credentials.
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There are 18 Responses so far...
Ruth Ann:
Thank you for this post.
Coach training organizations…especially those blessed by one of the international networks that that have self-appointed themselves to “certify” coaches are in danger of harming the advance of coaching as a profession.
First, there is the question of quality. There seems to be more emphasis placed on having a certain number of coaching hours as the standard that allows someone to train another than any understanding of the learning process. Certainly having experience as a coach is important. Knowing the dynamics of how a person LEARNS is also vital. Training isn’t learning.
Second, there is the question of value for price. I am in a graduate certificate program in conflict studies. The total cost of this program will be around the average amount for a coaching certificate. Of course I will have 200 hours (five courses of 40 contact hours) in class, plus reading assignments and term papers. Half way through I have a much better grasp of conflict than when I started. Can any coach training program come close to the value on price? I doubt it.
Third, there is the quack doctor traveling road show aspect of many of the coach training organizations. (Not all, but many.) Coaching, if it is to develop into its full potential needs to be understood as a “helping profession.” It is altogether honorable and ethical to make a living helping other people. This includes coaching. Making a killing is something else.
Finally what the coach training organizations are really teaching is that the primary goal of coaching is not to help people. The primary purpose is to make money, as much as possible. And the best way to make money in coaching is not by coaching where you charge by the session. (Unless of course you are the executive coach to the CEO of a major corporation. Then you can charge $500 / hour average – Harvard Business Review.) The real money, muliplying rivers of it, is to be found in training and certifying others as coaches.
John Steitz
For me, the best coach training is ‘experimenting’, practising, and developing one’s own ‘modelling’ – taking the most appropriate ‘concepts’, models, techniques, methods, philosophies, and thinking from as many coaching schools of thought as possible where one could have access to, concurrently when we are practising coaching.
I have brought books to attempt understanding about specific coaching approaches, seek invitations to ‘free coaching’ seminars, present in coaching related conferences, shared and elicited with coaches who come from different coaching schools background, attended (on partial scholarships) coach certifying programs, attended coaching and coach-affiliated meetings, participated in forums (private and public) and e-forums on coaching as part of my coach learning process, and I am still learning, analyzing, and engaging and shaping my coaching modelling; thinking as I consume ‘new’ perspectives, views, ideas, etc. about coaching everyday.
I used to be a member of ICF a few years back. The value of membership and credentialling will depend on how much one can and will motivate oneself to benefit from it. I find ICF regular peer support sessions enriching. However, as I grapple with my schedules, priorities do come into play, and I had to weigh how best to schedule.
Membership and credentialling is definitely useful, though not a pre-requisite, in my opinion.
Doing and ‘performing’ coaching to me is more value-added and generative.
The process of coaching mastery is through practice, practice, practice, experimentations, and doing what it takes to facilitate the coachee’s definitions, discoveries, development, emergences, refinements; self-actualizations of his/her ‘inner strengths/resources/potentials’ via positive transformational changes, that were previously ‘not-awared’; non-evident.
Coaching mastery never ends. No two coaching conversations will ever be the same. So coaching is an evolutionary and revolutionary process for both the coachee and the coach? Or is it not?
What is the purpose of certification and credentials? The answer to this question would probably open up more questions (which has to be explored before a decision can be made), and pave the way to the decision which coach training would be most appropriate?
After coach training (if that is the route taken), it would probably be practising, experimenting, and building one’s coaching styles on the road to coaching ‘mastery’.
If we come up with our own criteria to evaluate the most appropriate coaching school where we can obtain our coaching skills, certification and credentialling, does that makes sense and helps us in our decision making?
Meta-cheerio.
Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.
Great thread of discussion here….and of course there is no RIGHT answer.
Consider the “profession” of CONSULTING. Is that a profession? Can you get certified? Who charges what and how do they get the work?
IT is the same for coaching. The fact that there is an ICF and an IAC and AOC and the fact that there are certifications I believe help with one’s credibility somewhat, but for those of you with the gift of confidence and belief in what you do, you dont need any certificate. Make your reputation by doing good work and keep doing good work.
As an owner of a coach training school, I dont pretend that we are the best or the only way to learn coaching. But I am proud of the thousands we have trained and the experience that they recieved in both personal and professional development.
I personally like being certified, and an active, involved member of the ICF because it is my TRIBE… my community… and the ingredients for me in being a skilled coach is to have confidence, competence, community, and continual learning…. All of this I get in my coaching community of fellow coaches. And that includes you who are part of this thought provoking dialogue.
Dear Ruth Ann,
First I hope you never again insert the sound of your head exploding. It evokes an image that is likely to haunt my nightmares for a good, long time.
But I understand your frustration with the whole credentialing/certification “thing”. It is, indeed, a topic which causes incendiary effects in my own cranium as well.
As you know, I am always wary when people go off searching for answers before they’ve completed framing their questions. To me, a certification in coaching is an answer which preceeds the question it is meant to address, which is a very dangerous state of affairs.
I absolutely admire the work you and your foundation do to establish a firm research-foundation for the coaching profession. Can any of us say that, at this point, we can answer questions such as: “What is coaching?” “What makes coaching effective?” “What are the possible harmful effects of coaching?” “Are great coaches born or trained?” etc. etc. etc. In the absence of those questions, isn’t the whole idea of a certification in something that hasn’t even yet been fully identified yet the very height of the ludicrous? It seems to me that a lot of carts are being put before the horse here.
Further, I think coaching is simply an expression of who you are as a person, a projection into the external world of your inner life. Where do I go to get a certification in loving? Where do I go to get a certification in caring? Where do I go to get a certification in listening? Who ordained Jesus? Who gave Socrates his doctorate? Who trained Mozart? These people simply were who they were. And they had such an impact on the world that we missed them when they were gone and hoped that through a system of training and certifications we could replicate them. But it has proved fruitless. No Divinity School has ever graduated another Jesus. No Philosophy Academy has credentialed another Socrates. No Conservatory has ever produced another Mozart. What people like Jesus, Socrates, and Mozart gave us is who they were. All we can give anyone else is who we are. And if that expression of who we are, what we see, and what we feel results in a Coaching Moment, it is to be treasured. But no Coaching School will ever create an assembly line production of those blessed Coaching Moments.
Just my $0.02.
What a great post, thoroughly spoke to me on many levels.
While I’m a big fan of training and professional standards, I have found it hard to figure out who’s who and what’s best in terms of all the groups and associations in the market today. I’m also glad I’m not the only one wondering about exactly whose interests are monetized in some of these institutions.
At the end of the day, I guess the proof will be in the pudding. Expensive education doesn’t guarantee quality, and abbreviations after a name don’t necessarily a great coach make. Which is why I try and stay true to my values, and cater towards clients who hire me based on both professional and subjective fit, and rapport.
I’ll look forward to more comments and finding out how other coaches handle this topic.
Best wishes, Dee xx
Hi Ruth Ann:
You raise some key points about the coaching world. There are many different certifications and designations; just as there are a variety of coach training organizations. (A slight quibble: there aren’t “hundreds” of certifications. We are the only organization to study this in detail and we produced the only evidence-based white paper about these different designations).
And you certainly hit the nail on the head with your comment about the low value of certification when it comes to choosing a coach. The research is pretty clear that certification matters little. (Another quibble: the figure cited above that coaches average $500/hour is totally inaccurate. And if one really examined the HBR article that provided this data you would find that the people they included in their “sample” were mostly people involved in management consulting and not people who had coach specific training.)
I don’t think your point was about the numbers, though. I think it was about the frustration of trying to sort through all the different designations, schools, systems, pricing, delivery models, etc. The letter writer you cite is typical of the requests we receive. Do you think your letter writer would have accepted the program from the latest coaching school to promote itself and its 16-hour certification program for just $395? Yes, there is such a school, and from its website you’d be hard put to find any problems.
Maybe you’re going down the wrong road. Maybe the diversity is a bonus, not a problem. Instead of bemoaning the current state of affairs, think of it as a “stimulus package.” A status that requires people to do their homework, educate themselves as to the best questions to ask, and like the questions you asked in your comments, think about what’s really important to them.
Regulation is a waste of time in this field. What is needed is education, and that’s a role that the Coaching Commons and others are accelerating. We don’t really need a single standard or a common definition of coaching, or identical training curricula. What we need are credible, reputable, objective, integrity-based sources of information like the Coaching Commons that can help anyone interested in coaching, whether novice, seasoned, or exploring, make quality decisions or choices about how they want to invest their time, money, spirit and energy.
One example is the set of “key questions” we created so that those who are searching for a training organization can sort out which schools should be on their own top five list. Although we list every coach training organization on our website, we do not provide evaluations or judgments about the schools. Yet, it’s clear that some are far superior to others on almost any number of criteria. Instead, we provide this set of key questions, the answers to which will assist anyone to make their own judgment and evaluation of which school is right for them.
Rey Carr and Peer Resources are, if you’ll pardon the pun, peerless. When I say “hundreds of certifications,” that estimate includes “certificates” which are offered by individuals, schools, associations, and other entities, not limited to the USA. However, I yield to Rey in all things. And not for the first time on this site, I highly recommend that you visit the http://www.peer.ca website, sign up, pay up, and support this international treasure.
Thanks for your courage in bringing this conversation to light! I also appreciated your honesty, especially when you said you chose to get the IAC certification because you were on the board and felt that made sense.
I chose the training program that I ultimately completed and became certified from because it worked best for me and my life. I wanted a coaching program that was challenging, transformative, and promoted deep reflection. It also had prerequisites, was over a year long and provided a lot of mentor support which I wanted. I agreed with the point that just because a coach has or doesn’t have a certain accredation doesn’t mean they are or aren’t a good coach. I have worked with various coaches some with and some without accreditations and have found that to be true.
Coaching is both an art and a science. You need fundamental coaching skills as a foundation (which you can get from many different coaching schools or other places for that matter), yet the practice, self-reflection and then more practice integrating the new learnings resulting from the practice and reflection over a long period of time is what makes us better coaches.
In my opinion, it’s like the coach that has coached for 15 years yet uses the same skill set 15 times over thus repeating that initial year 15 times versus the one who is consistantly increasing their learning through finding out about best practices, then integrating them, reflecting about them and then applying that new knowledge in their coaching practice to become a better coach. That’s the unltimate reason underlying why I join certain organizations and not others, to be a better coach and to connect with other professional coaches committed to improving too.
Just my .02 cents;),
Nancy Hellander Pung
While I am a relatively new member of the coaching community, I can see why new coaches and those who may be considering a coaching career are confused by the many organizations and programs out there. I take my profession very seriously and feel that the International Coach Federation has developed a method of assessing the competency of coaches which should reassure both coaches and their clients. I believe a global accreditation organization would go a long way to building credibility in a profession that is very much needed in the world today.
“At the 2006 Coaching Summit in Vancouver, British Columbia, convened by the International Coaching Federation, many of the leading figures in coaching met for the purpose of ‚ÄúEvolving the Conversation: A Summit on the Future of Coaching.” The participants agreed that another global summit should take place, this time convened by The Foundation of Coaching.”
This is from The Foundation of Coaching website, which I understand, Ruth Ann, that you are deeply committed to and involved with, right? So, what about the ICF? Isn’t it an international coach training accreditation body? What is your opinion of their credentialling process?
The question of the value of coach certification is one I have spent a lot of time pondering, and I’ve written about it before several times. So let me see if I can add something significant to this discussion, which has already covered some very valid points from some of my favorite commentators.
First I agree with John’s point that coach certification bodies could actually harm the advance of coaching. This could happen if they define the process of how to become a coach instead of the outcome of what a coach is. The process of how to become a coach is not only very diverse, varying from person to person, but also it is changing rapidly over time. The best coach training is much more effective than it was 5 or 10 years ago, due to the rapid advances in human development technology that continues today. By defining particulars of the process of becoming a coach, we unnecessarily limit innovation and slow development in coach training.
Which leads me to Lable’s point that we don’t even know what coaching is yet! At least not precisely. I agree that we need to keep working on defining this through research. Coaching is a work in progress and will be for many years. Despite that, we know enough about what coaching is to have an intelligent conversation about ‘it’. And we can also assess well, but not perfectly, what works and what doesn’t. I believe it is helpful to keep practicing and refining our ability to assess coaching, while at the same time knowing that it is still an art, not a science. I also hold to the wonderful ideal that we can support people in becoming their version of Socrates or Mozart, in other words we can get much better at helping people become great.
In our quest to create greatness in coaching, coach certification can have value in the following ways:
1) To assist clients to choose good coaches. Probably only the most well-informed clients will ever make use of this feature.
2) To help coaches assess themselves against high standards, build confidence, learn and improve.
3) To help to provide a benchmark that defines the highest standards of what coaching can be.
The second and third reasons are the ones that I see as significant enough to spend so much of my time supporting the IAC’s development. (I’m currently the President of the IAC.) Of course, as Pat mentions, there are also other important benefits of professional organizations, apart from certification.
In the interests of staying on Ruth Ann’s original question, I’ll say that coach training and coach certification are not necessary, but if used well, they can both be very good investments in becoming a coach.
Ruth Ann,
You showed the courage and insight to address two of the issues that confuse people about coaching and devalue the industry as well.
Coach training schools and certification bodies sell their wares to coaches or prospective coaches with false promises and claims that buying their certifications or training will make people better coaches and/or more marketable. Is this not a breach of trust?
I believe the consensus of the posted comments, your article, and my experiences agree that the person makes the coach. I agree that no certification or training can make a good coach, or separate the good coaches from the not so good coaches.
You zoned in on the real truth when you said: ‚ÄúResearch is showing that most clients don’t care about a coach’s certification. They care about the coaching relationship and the results.”
The most important person in the whole coaching equation is the client. When the focus is on creating a great trusting relationship to achieve the goals of the client, on the client’s terms, then success occurs. The sole measure of success is the degree to which the clients achieved their goals. Not coach training, or coach certification.
I believe the coaching industry would turn the corner when it concentrates on finding more ways to assist more clients to achieve their goals, and move away from certifications, training, and such. Just a dream.
I think another factor to consider is the risk of poor coaching and the value of trying to protect against potentially bad coaching (although, as others have mentioned, efforts to protect against bad coaching through certification are approximate, at best).
Although we like to think that our clients are strong enough to withstand poor coaching, they incur a financial cost during the time it takes them to assess that a coach might be detrimental or ineffective. In addition, even strong clients can be led toward poor decisions by bad coaching – as much as we may want to be seen as equals (and for some, subconsciously, as more knowledgeable), we are in a position to influence our clients’ decisions and their lives.
Furthermore, bad or ineffective coaching, even if it doesn’t negatively affect the client, can negatively affect the client’s view of coaching and lead to negative PR about coaching.
In my opinion, whether or not coaching is a profession, the more seriously we take our power to make a difference to our clients, the greater the responsibility to “do no harm”, even through negligence or neglect.
That said, any certification process that leads the public to believe that a coach is better or safer than is actually the case is potentially worse than no certification. Certifying bodies also have a responsibility to be accountable for the quality of the coaching of those they have certified, to the extent that this is feasible.
To some degree, coaching has managed to fly under the radar of certain kinds of scrutiny and disclosure. Licensed helping professionals such as psychiatrists, psychologists, and clinical social workers can lose their licenses and risk serious financial penalties. Lawyers can be disbarred. The actual risks of losing a particular certification are, in my opinion, unclear and, as far as I know, disciplinary actions are not made public, even at a summary, statistical level.
Coaching has always been and continues to be a conversation, which ultimately introduces the client to themself. The client, not the coach, is the keeper of the answers they seek. The coaching conversation, however it’s conducted, is only a catalyst to this revelation. No one can ever be an expert of another, regardless of the years of schooling, the list of credentials, the hours of training and experience. ‘Truths’ handed over to clients from this place of professional expertise and opinion are like fool’s gold compared to the same truths discovered by the client. What makes a truly great coach isn’t the certification, it’s never forgetting this truth.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of panning for gold, you’ll understand the metaphor that the coaching conversation is the water that helps sort the sand from the gold. I’m pretty certain that where the water is from doesn’t affect the result so long as it flows freely.
As for the many people wanting to join in, seeking the ‘right’ program or certification and all the programs seeking people to certify, I have one cautionary thought, focus not on what you need to obtain clients, but on what clients need from you. I suspect then, what is ‘right’ will become obvious, like gold sparkling in the miner’s pan.
Amen to that.
Dear Ruth Ann,
thank you for very good post!
Ruth Ann,
Thank you for the perspective. I just began a program that is accredited through ICF with the intention of getting ACC, then PCC, then MCC certification as I progress in the profession. Here is my concern and the reason why I felt that the investment of time and money would be worth it for me: I am 36 years old, have worked for the same company since 1995. The company that I work for happens to be a (regionally (NCA)- accredited)University. So- I received both my bachelor’s degree and my master’s degree from this institution. I have 5 years of management experience, 1 year as an internal management/training/ recruiting consultant (for the same company), I am an adjunct faculty for this university, and now- I am doing Quality Assurance and (group/ teleconference)coaching for the same organization. So- I feel like with my (relatively limited)experience (and education) alone…I fear that I will have a difficult time getting clients (if I were to break away from my employer which is my ultimate goal). As I look at coaches that are “making it” in the industry, they typically have extensive backgrounds: former CEO’s of companies, extensive management/ director backgrounds, Phd’s etc. (compared to my 5 years of management experience and Master’s degree). I feel like obtaining credentials is something that I have a bit more control over than my experience and therefore- may help compensate for where I perceive that I am lacking. Incidently- I do plan on starting a Phd in organizational psychology after the completion of my 1-year coaching program. The thing is…coaching is a passion of mine that I discovered when I was managing people…I really want to make it my long-term career, but am a little discouraged (not enough to give up on it) by the idea that even my pursuit of credentials may lend the credibility that I will need to obtain clients. I agree that if I prove that I can help people through my coaching….then that will lend the ultimate credibility…but how will I get infront of executives (without having the CEO/ director/ CFO) background to prove myself in the first place? Am I mistaken to think that having the ICF credentials and a doctorate degree will help?
Dear Natalie,
Some people are only comfortable and confident if they jump through some big hoops and get pieces of paper to hang on their walls and initials to put after their names.
Perhaps you will feel worthy to coach if you have all those letters after your name, which may give you the confidence to go after the kind of clients you want.
There is no doubt that good coach training will make you a better coach.
Will it help you break away from your employer and create a sustainable business?
Only if you market yourself. Clients don’t magically appear because you have a credential or a degree. You have to build your business.
Any good coach training will force you to – gulp – COACH.
And you’ve already done some coaching.
So search your soul and your bank account, and see what makes the most sense for you. Listen to Mark Joyella’s podcast on setting your rates for coaching.
And whether or not you decide to go for the next few years’ worth of training, do begin coaching as many clients as you can NOW. Get the Thomas Leonard “How To Coach Anyone” book, or any of the other fine books on the subject.
Then start immediately to build your coaching business.
And when you’ve coached over 100 people, you’ll be able to make a better decision for yourself about what you need in order to get where you want to go.
And of course, you would do well to discuss this with your own coach.
Don’t have one? Check out the ReciproCoach opportunity through the Coaching Commons. You can kill two birds with one stone: you’ll be coaching someone, and you’ll have a coach. No charge.
Hope this helps.
Ruth Ann
Hi Ruth Ann,
Many thanks for your contributions and dedication to this wonderful world of coaching.
Your emphasis on the question “What kind of coach do you want to be?” rings true with our very specialized group of corporate speech and communication coaches.
The fact that we are ‘experts’ in a niche area — all our coaches have Masters (degrees) or above in speech and communication — has kept us smoothly in business since 1964. Having a content expertise and passion will set you apart as an executive coach.
Other questions to ask are “What competencies are required to nurture a career in coaching?” and, among all the degrees and certifications out there which you’ve explored, and the second question follows, “How do I gain those competencies?”
We are not experts on what is offered out there, but can advise on the competencies needed for a successful life as any kind of executive level coach. The top four:
1. Deep knowledge of the process of coaching and behavioral change
2. Trust and relationship building
3. Sales and networking skills
4. Outstanding and appealing self presentation
So, a new coach needs to figure out what focus area in coaching will bring a lifetime of career fulfillment and how to learn and nurture the four competencies above.
And how to achieve the above competencies.