What is the state of my own professionalism?

Playing the role of devil’s advocate for a moment, I’d like to turn the theme of this edition of the WCM e-zine on its head a bit. Instead of discussing “The State of the Profession,” let’s turn the camera around for an inward perspective and focus on the professionals. That’s you, and that’s me. I suggest we ponder this:

What is the State of My Own Professionalism?

Let me be more specific and share a few ideas as we begin to process this line of inquiry in the February edition of the Worldwide Coaching Magazine.

Taking stock – a coaching best practice

Whatever we are attending to, we, as coaches, are always helping our clients clarify intention and develop SMART goals; identify challenges and opportunities, identify and align motivation with vision and action; design action steps nurturing commitment and follow-through, and celebrating success.

Each one of these actions and many related sub-actions begin by “taking stock.”

Our goal, as coaches, is to help our clients arrive at clarity, gain insight and perspective that moves them into inspired action – fundamental to good coaching.

Eight years ago, when I earned the right to call myself a Professional Certified Coach, there were 49 coaching programs recognised by the International Coach Federation (ICF).

The field was burgeoning and wide open and I was excited to enter and contribute to what seemed like a fairly new and promising professional career path.

Since then, the coaching profession has grown, developed and matured. Hundreds of coaching schools and programs, both independent and affiliated with colleges and universities, have sprung up. Training program offerings range from one week to 10 days to hundreds of hours in class time and assignments.

While coaching today is widely recognised as beneficial and welcomed by individuals privately and in organisations, coaching, as a profession, seems muddied and cluttered.

Find out how to succeed in this noisy, cluttered and muddied profession in this edition.

The coaching road is congested

The training and development road that once was less traveled, is becoming more congested with coaching taking centre stage respective to leadership development and overall organisational growth.

Possibly with the emphasis on employee engagement and workplace culture along with an ever diminishing pool of qualified leadership candidates, these factors may have pushed coaching to the forefront.

There continues to be an emphasis for certification. Personally, this gives me pause for concern. The issue is one of expertise.

Read more in this month’s edition.