Not All Coaching Certifications Are Created Equal: “Make the Best Choice”

What sets the IOD Executive Coaching Certification (ECCP) apart from the others? –  In-depth training to learn how to coach, real coaching practice, and one on one feedback from an experienced coach!  

•  An effective Coaching Model should be based on research, experience, and best practices 

There are a multitude of Executive Coaching Models in the marketplace. Most of the coaching models have around for many years.  The IOD Coaching Model is continually updated to match the needs of the coach as s/he navigates the everchanging landscape that leaders in the organization must face.  The IOD Coaching Model guides the new coach through stages of the coaching engagement from uncovering the goal to unpacking the goal. It also focuses on goal directed questions and other critical aspects of the goal.  

•  Strategic Approach to Questioning 

There are good books on the market with lists, and pages of questions to ask during the coaching engagement.  The IOD coaching approach teaches the coach how to use targeted questions to gain specific information that is relevant to each stage in the coaching model.  The key to successful coaching is information gathering, not just asking a bunch of questions.  The IOD coaching approach outlines key information that is necessary to obtain during each stage of the coaching model.  This information can be valuable to the coach in later sessions, especially when the coachee is converting discussion to decision. 

•  Coaching Leaders to Meet the Challenges of the New Normal (VUCA)

Just what is the new normal?  Today’s leaders need to change radically to meet the challenge of the complex business landscape, which is in flux.  The acronym VUCA, coined by the military stands for: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous.  During the last eighteen months, dealing with the COVID pandemic, we have learned to operate in an ever-changing VUCA environment.  But the challenges for the coach, working with the leader doesn’t stop there, the role of the leader is much more difficult and complex, than in years past which, requires vertical coaching and development.  

•  Focusing on Horizontal and Vertical Development Coaching

All coaching increases learning, but not all coaching causes a leader to challenge his/her thinking and recognize conditioning.

• Horizontal Coaching provides definition, not depth or a shift in a person’s self-awareness, identity, or view of the world.
• Horizontal Development refers to acquiring more knowledge, skills and competencies.  We expand our toolkit, gain new skills, broaden our knowledge and become more competent.  This  is not enough to survive in the ever-changing VUCA environment. In order to move forward and be more effective, we need to include Vertical Coaching with Horizontal Coaching. 
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• Vertical Coaching, elevates thinking.
  • It promotes advancement in a leader’s thinking capability by examining behaviors, mindset, professional maturity, emotional intelligence, and cognitive framework.
  • A broader more complex integrated realistic view of the world is formed, promoting deep listening and encourages polarity thinking.
  • It encourages different ways to deal with challenges.
  • Vertical Coaching promotes the ability to see through a different lens and gain more advanced worldviews.
• It increases the ability to think in more complex, systematic, strategic, and interdependent ways. 
• This coaching promotes adaptability, greater self-awareness and collaboration, and the ability to span boundaries and networks.  

Vertical Development is not about training a leader in skills and increasing their knowledge; it’s about transforming the ways a leader thinks and behaves.  Vertical Development is essential to address complex VUCA problems, cultivate high stake relationships, navigate rapidly changing circumstances, handle ambiguity of leadership and drive transformational change.  This change in leadership maturity has an impact on how leaders interact with different generations, diversity, inclusion, technology and change in general  

Don’t just take my word, this is backed up by some of the brightest minds in the industry; Drs, Alan Watkins, Carol Dweck, and Susanne-Cook Greuter.