How do I choose a coach? (Longer Read)
This is the third of three central questions to ask yourself when you are thinking about coaching.
1. What is coaching?
2. Is coaching for me?
3. How do I choose the right coach?
Choosing a coach:
Coaches don’t come in ‘one size fits all’, thankfully, as nor do you. Coaching is an investment, a considered choice and like all investments I think some due diligence is important. There’s a vast amount literature out there on coaching and coaches, it can feel like you don’t know where to start. On my own coaching journey which started as someone who’d never had coaching, and feeling like I needed ‘something’, I happened across a coach. On hindsight, I really wish I’d had some pointers to consider before jumping in. As a practicing qualified coach, I think is important to share this, as even if I’m not the coach for you right now, this might help you work out what’s important to you and find ‘your’ coach. It also goes a little way to supporting a professional practice within an unregulated industry, something I’m passionate about.
There are countless books and studies on coaching and pretty much all sources point to the relationship between coach and client as being a vital part of coaching. Studies show clients find the relationship even more important than the outcomes; the relationship is the crucible for trust, awareness, change and growth (O’Broin & Palmer, 2019; Palmer & Whybrow, 2019).
From my own and other’s experience I know you’ll will want to feel like your coach ‘gets you’; a connection and rapport that fosters trust and allows you to be completely candid. But how do you know that off the bat? – before you make the decision to invest in yourself? Sometimes just a quick check of a coache’s website, you like ‘the cut of their jib’ and that’s enough. For some a quick chat and you just know it feels like good chemistry and there’s a sense of connection immediately and that’s enough. For some there’s a bit of this, but a question of, ‘how do I know for sure? Well, only you will know and perhaps stead-fast certainty at this stage is a big of a big ask of yourself. Maybe you have more questions – and that is OK, your prerogative in fact.
I always have an introduction and ‘chemistry’ session where both of us can ask questions, listen, and basically suss out if we ‘think’ we will fit with each other, I never coach anyone without doing this, to me it’s vital.
There are some other considerations that you may find important on the way to a chemistry session though, which I’ve highlighted below. Not all these points will resonate or matter to you, so considering why they do or do not matter is a nice little question to hold in the back of your mind:
Qualifications
Is it important to you that your coach has a coaching qualification?
It’s not essential by any means as the coaching industry is unregulated. Some excellent coaches are unqualified, some poor coaches are very qualified. However, not all qualifications are created equal, some take three years or more, some are a few hours over a weekend online course. For example, I have achieved a Masters in Coaching from Newcastle Business School at Northumbria University, which took three years – it was an important decision for me to ‘professionalise’ my emerging coaching practice as I’d been coaching for years.
What does a qualification give the coach?
Well, that depends on what it is and where it’s from. Some qualifications are very niche and specialist such as CBT or NLP etc. Some ‘qualifications’ are from a weekend on-line course some are from years of academic study in business school. I’m not an oracle on coaching courses, but I do know that my grounding in coaching; development of my philosophy, my identity as a coach, and my overall ethos of practice reflection and supervision would not be as ingrained if I hadn’t studied at length, been tutored, and really felt stretched practically and academically; a master’s is steep learning curve. There are studies that show Post Grad qualifications embed the importance of continuing personal development (CPD), reflexive practice, supervision, and practice centred in ethical grounding (Diller et al., 2020; Myers & Bachkirova, 2018).
Coaching by nature takes you out of your comfort zone, training, learning, and qualifying in coaching is an experience that continually challenges and pulls you out of your comfort zone and I think you’ve got to go through that to be able to guide others through it.
It’s given me the insight and professionalism to understand where my capabilities start and end, self-awareness to not take on work that’s out of my depth, not open boxes I don’t know how to close. It’s given me the ability to deeply understand the fragility of our vulnerability, to have my client’s well-being front and centre and to not chase the dollar…
What does a qualification give the client?
All the above, by proxy. Peace of mind, that your trusted confidant is a professional in their field. Whatever the coach’s qualification and wherever it’s from – if you feel this is important to you and you have considered why that is, I would hope you feel welcome to discuss this with your prospective coach or use this as a filtering tool to establish what’s important to you and find what you are looking for.
Style & Genre of Coaching
What style of coaching are you looking for?
You might not know the answer to this, so it’s worth looking into the different types of coaching available and always read your prospective coach’s bio before you get in touch, that should give you a feel for them and their style. Some coaches are specialist in areas such as Solution Focussed, Ontological, CBC or NLP; some work for an organisation or are trained to deliver 6-12 session programmes with very specific exercises each session - some are fully eclectic. Words! These are all just a jumble of jargon, if you’re not familiar, please remember you are fully entitled to ask all your questions to make an informed choice.
I’m eclectic. I adjust my style to the needs of my clients and have investigated and studied many genres and style of coaching in my MA, models, tools, and techniques. I’m not affiliated to any licenced or prescriptive coaching programmes, and I don’t have a ‘set programme’ to take you through. I work with you holistically as you are now and as you’d like to be. Holistically? Another buzzword – to me this means I usually start with clients in a work-based capacity, but I believe people take their whole-selves wherever they go, so we will work with YOU in whatever capacity that shows up. You control the agenda.
Your coach should be able to talk to you about what they do, how they do it and what you can expect. Some coaches centre on life coaching, leadership, developmental or career. There are no crazy questions – just ask. You may not know what you’re looking for yet, so a chat in the chemistry session is a good place to start.
Background & Experience
Is it important to you that your coach has experience in your industry sector or challenge or career development?
Again, not essential. Often, it’s better they don’t and are completely removed from your area. Other times an understanding of your industry can be very beneficial. There is no right or wrong answer here, it depends on what you as a client are looking for, skills and performance coaching or developmental and transformational coaching. I’d suggest you ask yourself why an industry specific coach is important to you or not and bring that to the chemistry session to discuss it openly. I love when clients bring these thoughts to the chemistry session as sometimes, just that short chat can give new clarity on what you do and don’t want – and it isn’t always me, so I often refer to someone who may be more suitable. An important note here is that a track record within your industry or sector is not an indication of someone’s ability to coach. Coaching is a very different set of skills; a coach that parallels your achievements, style and skills required in your industry role may have similar bias and be unable to see your blind spots, take you out of your comfort zone or offer challenge and perspective. It’s always been important to me that as a coach I understand what constitutes success for you in your field – in my experience people can articulate that very well themselves. Sometimes no inside knowledge allows the coach to ask those stupid (yet perfect) questions that an insider would never ask - that just flips a switch. You do want to get the sense that your coach understands you and whatever it is you are working on and sometimes this is more about experience at a senior level or starting your own gig, downsizing, or taking on a huge new role rather than the specific industry. This is worth giving some consideration which choosing your coach – what’s important to you?
Accreditation/affiliations
Is your coach accredited by or affiliated to an independent coaching body?
Again, not essential as coaching is an unregulated practice. There are global organisations where coaches can become affiliated and registered. They often hold CPD events, trainings, conferences and seminars. Accreditation to one of these independent bodies is usually an onerous process of evidence-based assessments, key criteria frameworks, and months of portfolio building - you can’t buy or bluff your way in. I am a member of the Association for Coaching and currently working toward full accreditation. I like this sense of community-regulation, continuous feeding back into the industry and the continuous personal development opportunities. The question of whether coaching should be regulated or unregulated is complex but for me being a member of the AC takes coaching along the path of professionalisation of my practice, which feels important to me. Being part of an independent body is equally important to the eclectic nature of my coaching as I’m always researching, learning, and discussing emerging themes and research with other coaches.
Ethics & Values
How does your coach regulate their practice ethically?
Do they have a code of ethics? Is that important to you? What are their values and guiding principles? Values are a set of guiding principles that guide us and for me, guide my coaching practice. Ethics are moral principles that help us determine good, bad, right, and wrong, perhaps seen more as the rules. Ethics could be seen as the practical application of values (Iordanou et al., 2016).
Coaching can be quite intimate; clients often share things that are very personal and so confidentiality and safe space are important to building and maintaining a trust that allows you as a client to open, particularly in corporate coaching settings. This always brings up the question of ethics and ethical practice. I consider myself to be ethical, but I think most people would, and for me that’s not quite enough. How can I share my ethical grounding as a coach? As a member of the AC, I abide by their universal code of ethics, which you can find on their website https://www.associationforcoaching.com/page/AboutCodeEthics. It’s all-encompassing as you’d expect, covering doing no harm, focussing on clients’ needs and honouring trust and confidentiality as well as the nature of relationships. However, it doesn’t cover every possible everyday scenario and I personally think it’s important that your coach can discuss how they regulate themselves ethically; not only follow the code, but continually develop their practice ethically as every coach’s value system will differ. Reflection, reflexivity, supervision in its many forms, CPD and reading are all part of my ethical development – every day I’m faced with ethical moments of choice, we all are. In many ways you are already engaging in an ethical consideration of your own by considering how important each of these points are to you and why….
Supervision
Is your coach taking part in Coaching Supervision? Is that important to you?
It’s not essential or mandatory but is considered good practice. What is coach supervision? It’s really what it says on the tin; a supervision of our coaching practice. It’s an important part of a coach’s own personal development and growth as a practitioner. Many coaches have supervisors with whom they discuss how they are developing, handling cases, dilemmas, ethical issues, and problems – it’s completely centred around the coach; a place for them to discuss their coaching approach. It’s confidential and your coach never shares your details, this is a very firm boundary, they don’t even use your name or identity, sharing only thoughts, feelings, perspective, and concerns about their practice as a coach - seeking ways to be more effective, think of new approaches and why to improve their clients coaching experience. The supervision is off-line from their practice, that is you as the client are not ‘present’ in my supervision session in person or virtually, my supervisor does not sit in on my sessions, so confidentiality is always maintained. Supervisors are coaches with a significant length of practice who have trained and further qualified as supervisors – and yes, supervisors also have coaches and supervisors. Supervision is an important part of my practice and ethical standards. I attend a closed group co-coaching supervision group and one-to-one supervision regularly, it has provided me with so many personal insights and is the backbone of my practice development. Not all coaches have a supervisor, not all coaches are aware of supervision (this comes back to qualifications) and not all think it’s important – you may wish to ask your coach about it if you feel it’s important to you. In corporate settings, the sponsoring organisation may wish to speak to a coach’s supervisor before contracting with them. For me, supervision is an essential.
Boundaries
This might sound very formal when you’re just thinking about finding a coach but might be important to you?
As a coach I need to be clear about my boundaries and respect those of my client and the organisation they work for if it’s corporate work. Boundaries cover the obvious such as session length, payment, and sponsorship (If you are a corporate client) and it covers how we will communicate, what you absolutely may not want to talk about and fundamentally what topics you want to bring to coaching - confidentiality and very importantly discretion. As you can imagine, coaching conversations meander into lots of different territories all the time, and it’s down to your coach to pick this up and check-in; is this, OK? are you happy to discuss this? or even asking permission to offer some insight or personal experience. This adds another professional element to an unregulated industry, but it is really the foundation for that crucible of trust. Sounds simple, it is, but it’s often forgotten or blurred. As a potential coachee it’s important for you to know that establishing boundaries is mutual but it’s the responsibility of the coach to be upfront and continually check-in. In a corporate setting the principles above are the same and the execution is much more contractually formal of course, as you would imagine.
Continuous Personal Development
Does your coach engage in developing themselves and their practice? Is this important to you?
I have studied for three years for master’s qualification in coaching, attending supervision, group supervision, peer coaching and I see my own personal coach very regularly. I attend CPD courses really regularly too, the AC provide excellent industry updates and workshops that contribute CPD hours. Organisations are always changing and people evolving – I’m continuously reading and researching coaching practice. To me coaching is a vocation and therefore is lifelong learning, there is always something new emerging, new science and data and new tools and techniques and I’m really into what I do. I keep my practice alive with continuous learning, a master’s dissertation is a steep learning curve, huge personal investment and for me it’s a commitment to lifelong learning and my own personal development. CPD is also another sign of professionalism in the industry, staying current and giving back to the coaching profession. This might also come back to qualifications and the emphasis of CPD in the coaches training. Is it important to you?
Recommendations/Reviews
Can your coach share testimonials and recommendations with you?
Can they share the highs and the lows with you? – it’s not always perfect and coaching is not a panacea. I’m happy to discuss this with you in our chemistry session. There are snippets of testimonials throughout my website as my business is very much based on word of mouth and referral. In today’s culture reviews are important but nothing will contextualise these more than bring any questions you have to the chemistry session. I’ll never share personal details, but I can share some of the typical content outline of cases and clients I’ve worked with if it’s appropriate. I don’t work with everyone I have a chemistry session with; sometimes we’re not a great fit, sometimes coaching isn’t the best intervention right now and sometimes I know of a coach who would be a better fit. Equally clients don’t always feel the chemistry, or my style isn’t what they are looking for. Discernment is the gift we can give ourselves. It may be that a different coach would be more suitable, or it becomes clear that another course of constructive support such as training, mentoring, or therapy would be worth considering. This is where the coaches professionalism, training, self-awareness, ethos, and the chemistry session comes into their own. It’s also worth remembering a coach unlike a puppy doesn’t have to be for a lifetime – depending on what you need any point, you might have several coaches numbers in your phone.
Pricing
Does your coach’s pricing structure work for you in the short to medium term?
Coaching is an investment in you, and it is a considered purchase. This is a big factor in choosing a coaching and a coach. I offer a private and corporate structure and I do some pro-bono work from time to time on a case-by-case basis too. My prices and payment terms are on my website, there’s nothing hidden. In the chemistry session we would discuss price, payment terms and affordability, location, and number of sessions you think you’ll need initially and see how that fits with you. Holistically it’s worth considering cost and benefit; only you will know what it is worth to you and whether you want to make that investment in yourself. Also, a coaching session is more than the 90 minutes we spend together, I personally spent quite a bit of time post session on reflection and planning additional research I think might be useful in working with you so there’s a fair bit of preparation before our sessions.
Intro / Chemistry Session
Does your coach offer a complimentary session for you to bring all your questions about them and coaching and being coached?
A place for you to share and articulate what is you want and need? I’ve outlined above the importance of the chemistry session in my practice. It’s the space to suss out connection, safety, and values.
Squaring the circle
Successful, sustainable, and fulfilling coaching is a meeting of equals.
It all circles back to rapport relationship, and trust. Do you feel like your coach will ‘get you’, be in your camp, challenge you candidly, take you out of your comfort zone and genuinely have unconditional positive regard? Do they have what you are looking for? Will they listen empathically and non-judgementally and support and champion your success? Do you think you can challenge your coach? because you absolutely should – they’re not always right. Do you feel like an equal human being contributing to the relationship; a coach is not a guru. Making good use of the information you have available, and a chemistry session is a good investment of your time.
References
Diller, S. J., Passmore, J., Brown, H. J., Greif, S., & Jonas, E. (2020). Become the best coach you can be: the role of coach training and coaching experience in workplace coaching quality and quality control. Organisationsberatung, Supervision, Coaching, 27(3), 313-333.
Iordanou, I., Hawley, R., & Iordanou, C. (2016). Values and ethics in coaching. Sage.
Myers, A. C., & Bachkirova, T. (2018). Towards a process-based typology of workplace coaching: An empirical investigation. Consulting psychology journal, 70(4), 297-317.
O’Broin, A., & Palmer, S. (2019). The coaching relationship. A key role in the coaching process and outcomes. In S. Palmer & A. Whybrow (Eds.), Handbook of coaching psychology: a guide for practitioners. (2nd ed., pp. 471-486). Routledge.
Palmer, S., & Whybrow, A. (Eds.). (2019). Handbook of coaching psychology: a guide for practitioners (Second edition.. ed.). London & New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.