5 Becoming a coach

Figure 5 Supporting people

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A tiny, glowing image of a man walks across the top of a wall made of wooden, toy bricks. As he comes to a gap in the wall, a hand holds the missing wooden brick in place so that he won’t fall.

Figure 5 Supporting people

Even if you are not currently interested in training to be a coach, this section will give you a useful insight into the thinking that your coach should have done before choosing their role.

As with mentoring, there is no single career path to becoming a career coach. Some people find themselves informally coaching colleagues, realise they enjoy it and decide to investigate further. Others may choose to transfer their own experience from a related area, e.g. careers advice, training or human resources. Many will undertake a coaching qualification, combining both theoretical learning and practical experience. It is also possible to undertake an apprenticeship in coaching, sometimes sponsored by an employer.

Although coaching is not currently a regulated industry, most successful coaches will either have a relevant qualification or extensive expertise in their field.

Even without a professional qualification, a good coach will use a relevant framework to clarify/measure their competencies, behaviours, etc. The European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) (Abrahamsson et al., 2015, p. 5) has identified a framework of core competencies against which to benchmark individuals and coaching programmes:

1. Understanding self

   Demonstrates awareness of own values, beliefs and behaviours; recognises how these affect their practice and uses this self-awareness to manage their effectiveness in meeting the client’s objectives.

2. Commitment to self-development

   Explore and improve the standard of their practice and maintain the reputation of the profession.

3. Managing the contract

   Establishes and maintains the expectations and boundaries of the mentoring/coaching contract with the client.

4. Building the relationship

   Skilfully builds and maintains an effective relationship with the client.

5. Enabling insight and learning

   Works with the client to bring about insight and learning.

6. Outcome and action orientation

   Demonstrates approach and uses the skills in supporting the client to make desired changes.

7. Use of models and techniques

   Applies models and tools, techniques and ideas beyond the core communication skills in order to bring about insight and learning.

8. Evaluation

   Gathers information on the effectiveness of own practice and contributes to establishing a culture of evaluation of outcomes.

You’ll find out more about coaching training in Week 8.

In Week 3, you considered what makes a good coach. You looked at key skills, such as the ability to listen and question, and to establish rapport. In Activity 5, you’ll start to consider whether you have the right skills and attributes to be a coach yourself. Even if you don’t want to become a coach at this point in your career, these are all skills that can be useful in the workplace, for example, when working in teams and with a wide variety of different people. Evaluating your proficiency might give you some goals for self-development that you weren’t previously aware of.