What factors contribute to excellence in coaching and building a top-notch reputation? This week is dedicated to three of the hallmarks of great coaches: Prepared, Present, and Purposeful. The first of these is the topic of today’s blog.
- Prepared
Dictionary.com defines prepared as: properly expectant, organized, or equipped; ready
Professional implies specific education, a code of conduct, planning, and methodologies. This is true in coaching too.
- Training
Coach-specific training that is approved by the International Coaching Federation is a basic first step. Often people that come to coaching already have related experience and skills training. Consider this: a doctor who decides to be a dentist has related experience and skills training – do you think that training in dentistry is still appropriate? Of course it is! This is true for coaching too.
- Ethics
Coaching is moving toward self-regulation with the ICF and all ICF coach members are held to the same standards of ethics and core competencies. While ethics is common sense, the reality is that training on ethics is essential to really understand and apply the code of conduct properly.
- Tools and Processes
In addition to coaching competencies and ethics, coaches use a variety of tools in their work. Examples include agreements, worksheets, questions, and of course processes or step-by-step methodologies. Being ready in advance with tools and processes makes sense. In coaching it also means being prepared to co-create tools and processes with clients.
In the next blog the second of three hallmarks is explored.
