The International Coach Federation (ICF) defines coaching as “a strategic partnership in which the coach empowers the client to clarify goals, create action plans, move past obstacles, and achieve what the client chooses.” The ICF publishes a table that explains how coaching competencies are evaluated including reasons credentialing may be denied. Here is one notable measurement: “For example, if a coach almost exclusively gives advice or indicates that a particular answer chosen by the coach is what the client should do, trust and intimacy, coaching presence, powerful questioning, creating awareness, and client generated actions and accountability will not be present and a credential at any level would be denied.”
Bottom line, if someone is telling, directing, or advising, they are NOTcoaching. Instead coaching involves listening and asking questions. 
Developing a coaching culture and using a coaching style of management with listening and asking questions is increasingly a tool used in organizational development. On a personal level, coaching skills help with relationships at home, with friends, and in the community.
Pros of a Coaching Culture:
- Perceived as positive and appropriate at all levels
- Proven impact on skill development and results
- Increases engagement and motivates productivity
Coach training and coaching certification covers both ethics and the competencies which means professional coaches are trained to empower clients with a positive, proactive process that recognizes them as their own best expert and the owner of their outcomes.
Coaching empowers people to find and apply their own answers. It is positive. It is proactive. It works.
