Anyone can call themselves a coach!  There are no legal licensing requirements or standards to be a coach. With 10,000s of people calling themselves a coach, and relatively few of them even having IAC or ICF credentials, how does one truly know the quality of someone who thinks and calls themselves a coach?  

Over the decades, I have taught 100s of coaches to coach.  At the same time, I have coached individuals at every organizational level, from front line management to Presidents and CEOs.  I have found there to be a number of key elements that stand out in truly exceptional coaches, the type of skills that add value to the lives of those they coach.   My comments below can be used to help you be a better coach or used to select someone to be your coach.  Here are eight of those key elements.

#1 – They Develop & Build a Reputation in a Niche Where They Have Distinctive Competencies

When first establishing themselves as a coach, most people agree to coach anyone who is willing to trust them.  They are generalists.  They have no specialty.  They have no characteristics that differentiate them from all the other coaches.  Having and specializing in a certain niche, allows you to differentiate yourself from others.  You focus your learning, share your knowledge, and/or your experience in a particular area.  You become THE expert in that particular niche and people who work in that niche start hearing about you and searching you out.

There are many examples of people who have an expertise in a certain niche.  Many people who coach in the real estate industry excelled in real estate and then coached others in real estate.  Another example is women who excelled in business and then decided to coach other women in the same business.  A personal example is how I differentiate myself as a coach.  I focus on three areas of personal expertise.  One distinctive competence is showing people how to effectively use the assessment tools I am considered by many to be one of the worlds’ masters with (over 650,000 sold and many awards related to using them) for self-development, hiring, communicating, managing, leading, team building, and so many other things.  Second, I also use the skills learned and practiced when I was a clinical psychologist to effectively listen to, hear what people are truly saying, and then facilitating the coaching journey of those I coach.  Finally, I use the skills learned while training others to be a coach.  The synergy of these three areas of distinctive competence allows me to differentiate myself from other coaches.

Coaches, it’s important that YOU find a niche where YOU currently excel or can quickly learn to excel within, and stress that as one of your distinctive competencies when you market yourself.  Word of mouth of your quality work in your niche will quickly spread and soon you’ll be very busy and maybe even able to increase your coaching fees.  People looking for a coach, search out people in the niche you want coaching within.

#2 – Clearly Hear & Communicate With Others

There is a difference between listening to someone and truly hearing what they are saying.  Listening deals with focusing on what someone is saying.  Hearing deals with integrating what they are saying (verbal words), with how they are saying it (tone inclinations), with what their body language is telling you (non-verbals), and with how they are responding to the context surrounding the communication (interactions with things outside the person).  Hearing deals with the integration of all these things.  It’s a much richer communication than just listening.  Hearing deals with “reading between the lines,” hearing things not verbally said, and delving deeply into the message so you can understand what is really going on for the person, not just what they tell you.

There are many systems that give guidance on how to communicate with others.  Myers-Briggs, the Big 5, DISC, and others.  I use one of the over 40 different DISC assessments in the market.  I find the one I use to be the highly accurate with almost everyone saying, during our validation process, that it is 90% accurate or greater.  To effectively communicate, the first step is clearly hearing what is said and meant, as mentioned above.  Then, the trick is to communicate back in a way the person WANTS to be communicated with.  Use a communication system you know exceedingly well.   Use it to understand the client’s personal style.  Then match their style and mirror their style while communicating back to them.  They will feel more comfortable, share more of who they are with you, be more trusting, and be much more transparent while communicating.  If you’d like to learn how to master the DISC doing this, you may want to consider enrolling in one of our DISC & Motivators Certification programs.

#3 – Be Client Focused NOT Coach Focused

We all have self interests in what we do.  As a coach, that self interest needs to be in alignment with the interests of the people you coach.  Many coaches coach because there are few barriers to entry (anyone can call themselves a coach) and they need the money.  The best coaches are those who focus on the client’s needs, not their own.  They separate their needs from the client’s needs and focus exclusively on the client’s needs during the coaching session.  They don’t let their personal values or motives take precedence over the values or motives of the client.  They focus on defining and helping the client identify and then attain their personal goals.  The most effective coaches actually understand the persona of each of their clients and modifies their coaching to align themselves with that persona.    Finally, the coach helps the client take the “journey” the client wants to take and does it non-judgmentally. 

#4 – Have & Demonstrate Ethical – Value Standards 

Every person has their own guiding ethical practices and moral guiding principles, and it’s important for the coach to respect those of their client.  People function best when they are who they are personally, and not try to be someone else.  For example, some people like to have a structure to guide them, while others like be the one setting that structure.  Also, some people like to use their time efficiently and not volunteer to do things, while others are more selfless and value giving to others.  When the values or ethical practices of the client and the coach clash, the best coaches help their clients be who they are and accept the client’s values or ethical practices.  If the coach has difficulty accepting or feeling comfortable with the client’s ethics or values, the best coaches either work hard to adapt them or refers the client to another coach. 

#5 – Keep Yourself & Your Clients Accountable

The best coaches keep themselves and their clients accountable.  If the coach agrees to do something they need to do it.  If the client agrees to do something they need to do it.   In some cases, it is difficult to hold clients accountable because they just are not doing what they agreed to do in previous coaching sessions.  There is a saying, “you get what you reward.”  If you reward people by NOT holding them accountable, you will continue to get that non-accountability.  Those are the times when the coach needs to focus on why the client is not doing what was agreed to be done.  It could be the client does not have the required skills to do the behavior, they really haven’t bought into doing the behavior in the first place, or some other reason.  What is going on regarding them not doing the action needs to be discussed and resolved.  

#6 – Stretch Yourself & Your Client

When I was in my clinical psychology program, I and most of my fellow students, voluntarily paid for and participated in therapy with a trained board-certified clinical psychologist.  The concept was if you were going to help someone by using your clinical psychology skills, you needed to make sure you were clinically intact and on solid ground yourself.  We were challenged in numerous ways and stretched to achieve past our comfort zone by our clinical psychology therapist.  It’s important for coaches to do the same.  They need to know themselves.  That’s why I have my own coach now to continue challenging and stretching me. Exceptional coaches do the same thing to stretch and challenge themselves.  

Effective coaches do the same with their clients.  They stretch their clients.  They challenge their clients.  They hold their clients accountable.  They are not clinical psychologists, but they do understand their clients’ abilities and capabilities and facilitate their clients’ success. 

#7 – Be Kind & Accessible 

The very best coaches have clients who feel comfortable enough to share their darkest secrets with the coach.  Part of this trust comes from being respectful of the client, even when s/he shares unusual situations.  They need to be kind, caring, and not negatively react even when unusual situations are shared.  Part of this trust comes from showing empathy in addition to caring for the client as a person. Furthermore, I believe that being accessible, even between sessions, allows the client to be more willing to take a risk and share their secrets.  These coaches are accessible to their clients whenever they are needed, not just during the 30, 45, or 60 minute coaching sessions.   In a way they are saying to their client, “I have your back.”  For sure, this accessibility is a way to demonstrate a caring for the client and a willingness to go that extra mile.  

#8 – Be Transformational NOT Transactional 

Being “transformative” means making a substantial, marked, and lasting change.  It usually refers to a strategic approach of creating a vision and then taking necessary actions to attain that vision.  It is akin to the process of changing a caterpillar to a beautify butterfly.   It transforms, changes, and integrates that change into something “new.”

“Transactional” refers to smaller step-by-step actions or changes.  For example, purchasing 100 shares of the same stock is a transaction.  Making 10 such transactions of purchasing 100 shares of stock is 10 transactions.  It is NOT transformational or making real and sustained change.  It is more a set of small steps towards some ends.

The very best coaches use many transactions or small steps to create transformative sustained change within their client.  They work with the client to take small steps towards some end, like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar, with the goal of transforming who the client is into a more “beautiful” person.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so the transformative beauty depends on the journey the client wants to take.

In Summary

In summary, the most effective coaches … 

• Create a niche using their own personal areas of distinctive competence and communicate that niche to prospective clients.
• Clearly hear and communicate via matching, mirroring, and other techniques, to align with their client.
• Are client focuses, NOT coach focused.
• Demonstrate key ethical values and respect those values of those they coach.
• Are exceptional at being personally accountable and keeping their clients accountable.
• Stretch themselves and their clients.
• Are kind and accessible, helping clients when needed, not just during coaching sessions.
• Use transactions to create transformative sustained and lasting change within their clients.

Being an exceptional coach is very difficult.  The above ground rules hopefully give you some direction and structure on how you can improve your exceptionalism as a coach, or what to look for when searching out a coach.