If you’re a people person then a coaching career will be a rewarding and fulfilling vocation for you. It’s about helping people to achieve their goals and aspire to be the best version of themselves. Here are some of the coaching career opportunities and requirements needed to set you on a career path you can enjoy.
Can You Make a Career out of Coaching?
In the past few years there’s been a steady increase in demand, across all ages and backgrounds, for certified coaches. As a result, it’s become the norm to use a coach to set goals and create action steps to achieve them. The increased recognition of the value of coaching has led to a larger number of pathways to practice coaching.
6 Coaching Career Options
- Life Coaching: Focuses on the personal needs of a client. During a personal coaching session, goals are set and a step-by-step strategy mapped out to attain them. The goals could be focused on, for example, personal development, social interaction, relationships and careers.
- Behaviour Coaching: Is coaching for performance. Specifically, assisting someone to identify, improve and adjust behavioural patterns. Thereby, fostering better life choices and improving productivity.
- Career Coaching: Assists clients with their career and development skills. It’s focused on professional development. For example, looking for a new job, transitioning between roles or practising a skill such as public speaking or interviewing.
- Business Coaching: Is also called executive coaching. These coaches work with professionals to help them succeed better within their business environment. They work with individuals or the management of a company. Within a corporate setting, they encourage the attainment of organisational goals.
- Leadership Coaching: Tends to focus on upper management and executives. They assist in creating vision and fostering strategic thinking. This is done by developing self-awareness in leadership. Additionally, they help nurture leadership capabilities.
- Educational Coaching: Is based within the educational environment. They assist in the identification and rolling out of best practices. Usually, they work with educational officials but they could also work with learners.
Career Opportunities for a Coach
Successful coaching is a continuous journey of personal development through learning. Being a coach brings with it opportunities to run your own business or work within a team. Coaching can take place one-on-one, in groups, in person or online. This means clients can be based anywhere in the world, as can a coach.
A coaching qualification develops a skill set that can be used by professionals within a wide range of industries. Such as human resources, organisational development, financial planning, medical health care, mental health care, facilitation, training and talent development.
Coaches can work across various sectors. They are great additions to non-profit organisations, and corporations and even the government have a place for them. Which means a certified professional coach can choose where they most want to make a difference. Essentially, by developing your coaching skill set and ensuring you have reputable coaching qualifications, you could have an endless number of career opportunities.
Universal Coaching Skill Sets
No matter what niche or industry a coach specialises in, there are a number of core skills that a great coach requires. According to the International Coaching Federation (ICF) there are 8 core coaching competencies that are essential for all coaches to have.
8 Core Competencies of Coaching
- Understand and demonstrate ethical practices by continuously adhering to ICF’s professional standards.
- Embody a coaching mindset to foster a client’s learning and growth.
- Be able to agree on expectations and define the scope and goals for clients.
- Develop good relationships based on trust, safety and professionalism.
- Be fully aware, present and engaged with a client.
- Great communication: Listening, questioning and explaining.
- Help a client to be more self-aware so as to gain insight and understanding of their thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
- Proactively and attentively support client’s growth and development through their achieving of goals.
In addition to these fundamental coaching skills, there are a number of universal techniques that coaches use. These are basic categories of coaching tools which overlap with positive psychology interventions.
3 Universal Techniques
- Imagery and visionary motivational techniques.
- Mindfulness exercises.
- Gratitude exercises and activities.
Character Traits of Good Coaches
To successfully communicate, empathise and connect with clients, coaches need to have good emotional intelligence. This means developing their social and self-awareness, being able to regulate their emotions and manage relationships.
One of the most important characteristics a coach can have is a positive attitude. A coach’s attitude determines their ability to persevere alongside their client. Coaches also need to be able to put their clients first and commit to their clients’ unique goals. Thereafter, they help a client identify and leverage their abilities in order to successfully achieve those goals. Accordingly, all coaches need to have great communication skills and be skilled at working alongside people.
Reputable coaching qualifications assist a coach to establish themselves with a firm foundation and be equipped with the necessary tools. As part of this foundation, all coaches need to have a broad understanding of a number of different fields and industries. This includes understanding trends, changes and new developments within multiple sectors. Therefore, another good coaching trait is self-motivation so as to be able to continually educate and upskill oneself.
What Qualifications does a Coach Need?
Certified courses are an important foundation for a coach. They often prove to be the “golden ticket” within a coaching career. This is because, when looking for a coach, many prospective clients look specifically for someone with a reputable coaching foundation. The primary way of doing this is to check where a prospective coach qualified.
Having an in-depth understanding of human psyche is an invaluable coaching asset to understand a client’s context. Therefore, one of the ways to advantage yourself, within the coaching arena, is to have a basic understanding of psychology. The easiest and most efficient way of doing this is to do a coaching course through an institution, such as SACAP. SACAP’s coaching courses all have a basic psychology component within them.
How to Start a Career in Coaching
To maximise coaching opportunities, your coaching training should be done through an accredited institution with a well-standing and internationally recognised reputation. SACAP has a range of coaching courses. These are accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and aligned with COMENSA. For more information on how to start becoming a coach, enquire now.
Related Courses
Coach Practitioner Programme
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Advanced Coach Practitioner Programme
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Postgraduate Diploma in Coaching
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