"How do I become a good coach?": 5 lessons you won’t learn at most coach training schools

Lesson #1 : It's not about the methodology

What some are calling the coach industrial complex, is a mixture of untrained 'coaches' and graduates from a forest of different schools who have ‘named, claimed and framed’ specific coaching methodologies. Keen to develop, would-be coaches pick their way through the forest, trying to figure out which schools to choose and then what to discard and what to integrate from what we learn.

Yet research has shown that it's not the tools and techniques but the coaching relationship that seems to make a great difference to clients.

So how might that be reflected in a coach training school's offering?

One question we can ask is whether there is a coherent philosophy behind the methodology and from what domain that is drawn. What is its theory of change? What are its assumptions? Does the methodology embrace the full biological, social and philosophical aspects of being human?

Furthermore, for developmental coaching of any kind, coaches need also to be developing. So finding a school which creates the conditions for that is key.

Lesson #2 : It's not about erasing your past