The Essence of Coaching

I’ve been called a Master Coach; and from the mid 1990’s through 2011, I held the credential of Master Certified Coach (MCC) awarded by the International Coach Federation (ICF). In 2012, through a series of circumstances and confusions, I neglected to renew my ICF credential. By the time I realized what had happened, I found myself in the awkward position of reapplying and needing to, once again; prove my “mastery” by submitting two recorded coaching sessions for review by ICF assessors. What I thought would be a simple process became a large challenge: a challenge that created the opportunity for me to reflect more deeply on my experience and perspectives related to the essence of coaching, the nature of the professional coach, the coaching relationship, coaching mastery, and the role of coaching in the world. This article and the three that follow are records of my reflections.

The Emergence of the Professional Coach

In my last article, The Essence of Coaching, I asserted that the experience of coaching has been alive for millennia and that an essential aspect of coaching is wonder. Coaching has long lived in dialogues with teachers, friends, spiritual leaders, artists, philosophers, the oceans, the stars and even our internal voices. I concluded that, if this is true, coaching couldn’t be the sole province of the professional coach.

The Coaching Relationship

I told a story with the E Street Band that was, and is, bigger than I ever could have told on my own. Bruce Springsteen

As I continue my search for coaching mastery, I’ve found this definition of a professional coach to be quite useful.