The aim of professional coaching is to create a reflective space where the Coachee can be supported by the Coach, to define their objective, and journey to reach them, through consistent action.
Being a Coach requires a complex set of skills. And is a lifelong professional journey !
So, from the Coachee’s perspective, how to choose a coach ?
As a metaphor, when you are buying a jacket, you know it will suit you because you know your usual size and sizes are normalised and assessed worldwide. So you have a frame of reference to lean on.
The professional coaching associations have designed competency models to assess Coach’s competencies.
Here is a graph to clarify the different kinds of assessment, and find your way through the many different acronyms !
In the center stands the Coach. One professional skill is Self Assessment. During the coaching session, the coach is observing themselves and making choices to work with their client.
The standards for these skills are the Coaches Competency Models. ICF and EMMC have build their Skill Requirements. Those two documents are quite alike.
However, as one of my clients in Supervision stated it lately, knowing the path is different from walking the path !
So to thrive from knowing to walking the path, a coach needs to :
1) train, learn tools, postures, psychology fundamentals…
2) have a Supervision space, to explore their « walking the path » with a neutral professional, and learn from it, and grow their capacity for self assessment in the moment
To give proofs of their real capacities with coachees, a coach’s work is assessed by an independant assessment process. In this kind of assessment, the coach brings proofs of their trainings, coaching hours, number of clients, supervision hours, and recordings with real clients. And the certificate has a validity period.
The assessors and the coach are totally independant : they don’t know each other. This to secure a neutral assessment, based on Skill Requirements.
So now that you have read this article, you should have a clearer idea of what’s behind, when you are reading a Coach’s profile. If not, ask about Supervision Certificate, and external certificates -ICF or EMCC- !