What do coaches do again?

Today, I want to give you a little more insight into the coaching profession. More and more people are hiring coaches, and yet few people know what coaches actually do, or what skills they are trained in. 

What's your why? What makes it important to you right now to learn to grow as a person, communicate more effectively, listen more attentively, or encourage others in their growth?

Coaching skills are highly transferrable and exceedingly valuable - you can use them as a grandmother, as a line manager, a teacher, a medical professional, a CEO, or in just about any other context, including coaching as a profession. And best of all, they are skills that can be taught. If I learned them, you can too.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the most well-known credentialing body for aspiring life coaches, and it defines coaching as:

…partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.

Coaches who have earned their first ICF credential, called the ACC (Associate Certified Coach), complete at least 60 hours of applied training, 10 hours of mentoring with a senior coach, and 100 hours of coaching practice, in addition to passing both an oral and written exam.

So what are the ICF ‘Core Competencies,’ or essential coaching skills, that they test for?

1. Demonstrates Ethical Practice
Understands and consistently applies coaching ethics and standards of coaching

2. Embodies a Coaching Mindset
Develops and maintains a mindset that is open, curious, flexible and client-centered

3. Establishes and Maintains Agreements
Partners with the client and relevant stakeholders to create clear agreements about the coaching relationship, process, plans and goals. Establishes agreements for the overall coaching engagement as well as those for each coaching session.

4. Cultivates Trust and Safety
Partners with the client to create a safe, supportive environment that allows the client to share freely. Maintains a relationship of mutual respect and trust.

5. Maintains Presence
Is fully conscious and present with the client, employing a style that is open, flexible, grounded and confident

6. Listens Actively
Focuses on what the client is and is not saying to fully understand what is being communicated in the context of the client systems and to support client self-expression

7. Evokes Awareness
Facilitates client insight and learning by using tools and techniques such as powerful questioning, silence, metaphor or analogy

8. Facilitates Client Growth
Partners with the client to transform learning and insight into action. Promotes client autonomy in the coaching process.

Reading through this list of skills doesn't even begin to express what happens in coach training. Most people who study coaching find their lives completely changed. 

Allison, halfway through her course at Awaken Coach Institute, said: 

"It feels fascinating, awakening, expansive, liberating and refreshing to learn other ways that people experience the world and life. It's freeing to learn that things aren't black and white or limiting, that there are multiple possibilities and the more exposure I have to other people's realities the more I can adapt and grow my own version of reality.

I love how we get to hold space for others to grow and learn while at the same time we get to grow and learn from our clients!! And get paid for it!!"

Gail said: 

‘To me Awaken is a sense of being warmly welcomed and encouraged, where we have the potential to reach our goals and be brave.’

Some words from Kaitlyn:

"For me, love is the word that immediately comes to mind, is like a very loving voice, and there is robustness to it. There is weightiness and robustness to everything within. It makes me feel this love that’s impactful."

And Karen: 

"OH MY GOODNESS! I just had a session with a client and we followed a metaphor and it was powerful. Seriously magical! WOW! And I am blown away by how much I learned about myself from her sharing! This is so cool!"

Coach training changes lives, starting with yours, and has a huge ripple effect through the families and organizations and systems that coaches and their clients are part of. It's so exciting to be part of. You can let me know when you'd like to join in!

What's your why again? How do you want your life and leadership to be better?

With great love,