I know that coaches are everywhere and doing some incredible things for their clients. EVERYONE says they are a coach these days, a bit like everyone knows everything about everything these days. That may be the case! It is common to believe in a coach for a sportsperson and coaches for businesses but a little tricky when it comes to professional yet personal coaching – you know where you get to transform life and get to your dream life, faster. If you think about it, it’s no different to you being the sportsperson and champion of your life, so making sure you have someone with you on that journey is an investable asset.
I would suggest to you that the quality and credentials of coaches vary – it is mixed and very inconsistent. There are many who are better marketeers than actual coaches, so whilst they can attract clients to them with great success, very few work with their clients in any long-term and meaningful way to get the transformations intended. Maybe there are a few in the world that can do both, but I would then expect them to be very choosy in who they work with and will not be accessible to the masses, normal people who can genuinely benefit and have a hunger for something better in their lives. And if not this, then they will be charging very high fees.
You see, coaching another is skilled work, and the quality of coaches varies a lot depending on what they are qualified in and what experience they have to give their coaching credibility – a range of work that far surpasses what they can learn in a weekend’s training. Oh, I have been in the company of many coaches to invest in a weekend course with three-course lunch at a prime hotel. It may be a start but launching yourself as a coach from that weekend is unethical and dangerous, especially if they did not seek to progress to more robust and proven courses – but these short courses are designed to sweep you away and make you feel that you can change anything and anyone, the hype created is addictive and one where anything is possible but for a client that signs up with you it is bad practice. Then the bubble bursts and it’s hard to sustain the hype created that you could help others with ease. They say you are incredible and everything you can offer is already natural and then just as a balloon starts to lose air with time, just then you get email after email to say that further training is available and if you are going to be a successful coach, you need to sign up in this investment. They create hunger and curiosity at the weekend and a sense of confidence married with uncertainly and trepidation and you then become a marketable commodity. What and how you engage with the emails and constant marketing messages is tracking your movement towards bingo – a sale of some sort but a bot somewhere is nicely drawing up a profile on you. With digital marketing that is even quicker now where the call to action is just that. These sales and marketing techniques are used by many sectors in business – they are valid and give good outcomes – I market my packages and market to my future clients. It’s not that – it’s all about the coach and how their training is integral to what they can help with. They have to be robust and well-trained with ethical grounds to coach someone.
Serious coaching deserves serious and committed coaches who have skill. Full stop!
Then we have to take into account the evolution of coaching where in some countries coaching is still in its infancy because they have other more private support systems in place that allow for getting help, like family or counselling or help from a friend. Coaching is more than just giving advice it is not about giving advice at all! Work done with a good coach is largely the client’s work. This is based on trust as in a friend or family member. To share one’s problems with a total stranger just because they coach is hard but much easier and more open than family friends who cannot give an unbiased or non-judgemental answer or approach.
So, it becomes clear to me that if you don’t really know what help you need, that is where you may struggle in today’s world of misinformation. In many countries coaching is not always governed by ethics either, so it becomes very concerning as to the quality of the coaching relationship and potentially intimate work that does need to be done for progress. But good coaches are more than just a qualification.
It’s like anything when you look at roles that help a person’s growth and healing from teachers to doctors and nurses to mentors and consultants, to name but a few. There’s so much inconsistency in the quality and commitment. This could be a training issue or a lack of accountability and self-development for themselves, or perhaps the mentality is that they don’t want to give their best. There are, of course, many successful ethical and high-standard coaches all over the world that work with their clients in a very holistic and wholesome way and help their clients in a powerful and meaningful way.
A lot depends on if you are new to the arena of getting coached, which many are. There are so many forms of coaching, and I am not an expert in all of them, but I do know enough about coaching the whole of you which then spans across a person`s whole life that includes work and career, relationships, health, finances, recreation, and social life in a joined-up way. Why would you not want that?
And – coaches are not experts so move away from the limitation that they have to be an expert in one thing – that’s a business decision, you are human and have facets about you are all connected to make you whole Why only deal with a part of you even though at the time of seeking help, it was making a lot of noise and creating trouble for you? A coach needs to be able to hold that and explore other parts of your goals, ambition, and challenges, to explore and become aware of how you tick – together. This is just as important as dealing with an urgent problem. This is what we call deepening and moving forward in a whole fully informed way.
So, this important partner with you, your coach, needs to be accessible, available, adaptable whilst holding you accountable, responsible, and having boundaries. The coach needs you to be open-minded to create your agenda. Such a coach needs to be trained and experienced in a robust way for versatility and adaptability, and holistic in their approach to you but they remain human and real and in loving service of you. That’s not an easy ask! Managing yourself as a coach to another is vital.
If you are looking for someone who tells you what to do, how, and when – that`s not a calling for coaching, neither is it for someone to dump things on or bend their ear and just vent – that`s also not coaching. If you just want someone to sort you out with something that is troubling you but without the commitment from you to explore what’s really going on, that’s also not coaching. Many just want to deal with one problem. A suitable analogy to this type of dilemma is wanting to fix an itchy skin patch. You go and see a health practitioner and they dispense a cream to help it go away, which it does for a while until it reappears in another place on your body with a possible vengeance. This is because the root cause was not dealt with, and it is only a presenting symptom. To investigate further requires time and commitment from both yourself and the physician with an evaluation of the outcomes and as well as possibly further reinvestigation, in not just the obvious places, but also the not so obvious ones.
So here are some tips on choosing a coach!
- First, decide if it is a coach you want. Are you ready to be honest with yourself even though that may be difficult? A good coach will be able to hold the space for you to explore these little aspects of yourself that will help you understand yourself and others around you, better. A great coach will have a range of lived-through experiences aside from robust theoretical training and practice. So, if you want to be coached on better health then get a coach who has credible experience of helping others or has lived through health challenges themselves, because the relatability with each other is much deeper and authentic. The range of experience a coach has is critical, even though they may specialise in a specific area. Go past the one-hit wonders and look for wisdom and maturity of experience.
- If you are new to coaching, you may be wondering how to decide how to feel with a coach? First-timers to coaching tend to hire coaches who make them feel like they have chosen a friend in the making with similar qualities to people they have already around them in the inner circles. I have seen it many times during the recruitment of coach and client with each other. It`s understandable that newbies to coaching want to feel comfortable and that their coach makes them feel nice. Is that enough to do real work, though? There must be a degree of discomfort at times, and both need to be ok with that. It’s usually from there that real work is done, that is transformative and sustainable and becomes a catalyst for other areas of life.
Great coaches are not friends, but they are professional and empathetic enough to be able to hold you when you need it, but also inspire you to be the best you can be whilst allowing for your learning and being in service to you. You are not looking for a coach where you can be friends because you already have those types in your inner community, so a coach needs to challenge you and adapt at times when they are genuinely in service of you. Most “nice” coaches tend to be masking something and I have had my fair share of such ones when I first started my coaching journey. The balance between being confident, bold, friendly, empathetic, and challenging is a skill that only experience can build that has an additional ingredient is thrown in – unconditional regard. What I found for myself when eliciting the help of coaches, mentors and counsellors were the ones that were very comfortable in themselves and had the ability to stretch you despite it feeling awkward. The relationship must grow between the coach and client and it’s very rare that the magic is there at the beginning. The lasting end has to be magical If you are being convinced about being coached because the coach is saying all the right things, beware of this trick.
- Most good coaches will run a good chemistry session so both parties can acknowledge a working relationship and design it between the two parties so that if you do need to vent every now and again, you can – it’s designed as part of the coaching relationship. Coaches don’t expect their clients to turn up to coaching happy all the time – you can come into coaching a session in any mood – great coaches will be able to dance at that moment and coach you for learning.
- Great coaches refuse clients on ethical or moral grounds but also because they may feel that you may not be ready or need a coach, but they will be transparent and honest about it and signpost you on. There is always equality, and they expect also to be refused by clients as their coaching partners. Remember that the coaching journey is not always easy and anyone who sells coaching to make it a happy-clappy relationship is not true. You want a coach with who you can be yourself and not be judged but knows how to lift you up to connect you to your dreams and what you want but can work with you when you are in the deepest darkest place. It is a relationship of trust that needs to be built and it is best built against the analogy of the hare and tortoise, the latter being slowly, gradually, and authentically but it`s still faster than sorting things out yourself. Trusting to do work outside your comfort zone is key to results and better outcomes.
- You can, of course, be under the illusion that a coach that can help you quickly and at a fast pace means that you spend less time with them – less time means less money to spend overall. Trust me, it doesn’t ever work that like with great coaches – coaching deserves time – as much as is possible. Being committed is vital.
- Do some basic checks to check how they qualified and with whom and ask if they are a member of an ethical coaching organisation that supports quality and credentialing, so organisations like CTI, ICF. If you can’t find the information, publicly ask them directly.
- Your coach must have an adequate number of hours for their own self-development and coaching, mentoring again through a reliable source that enhances their own skills and builds new ones.
- Try and quiz the coach on their values and what and how they contribute. A coach that tells or leads you to do what they think is best, is not a coach.
- When looking for a coach give a few a chance but don’t always go for the cheapest one – think about, if they have something you are looking for, so tools like ambition, money, health, better relationships – each coach can bring their life experience in those areas to your benefit.
- Test them – do they have values like integrity, honesty, fairness – do their values match yours even if it’s not hierarchically in the same order as yours. What’s important about your relationship that you want to develop – be honest and have a chat with them. I don’t mind being quizzed in an appropriate way. Are they strong enough to call things out? Do you want someone who challenges you or shows you how challenges can be overcome? Make a checklist of what`s important to you about a coach in what you need to form them. Be clear and that way it’s easier to navigate the search for one that fits. It is important to have chemistry and rise to boldness, courage, and strength.
