A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO ICF CERTIFICATION

Become a Coach the ICF Way

Experience by Subash CV

FROM ‘A COACH’ TO AN ‘ICF CERTIFIED COACH’ – A lot of people ask me how I landed up in Coaching, after spending two decades in the corporate world.

A friend actually commented one-to-one on LinkedIn, ‘I am intrigued by your professional journey. What exactly do you do?’ I responded in a lighter vein, ‘I was trying to discover it myself’ and also promised a blog post on the topic.

Grateful to him for raising the query & thus giving me the inspiration for a blog post. That post has now evolved into this e-book, as I continue my learning journey from ‘Becoming a Coach’ to ‘Being a Coach.’

REVELATION #1

DO YOURSELF A FAVOR…
DON’T CALL YOURSELF A COACH;
UNLESS TRAINED

QUACK OR A CREDIBLE DOCTOR???

I HAD A CHOICE…

After spending 21 years in BFSI Industry in India – covering the south, central, north & western part of the country, and successful tenure in the Middle East, I decided to head back home to pursue my dream. To cut long story short I DECIDED TO BECOME A COACH.

But when I looked around, I realized there were many self-proclaimed coaches! Not trained, but calling themselves thus, based on their own professional and personal experience.

I decided I will not do that

I will not impose myself as a coach on others. I would rather take the difficult route of learning the science of coaching, maybe enhance it to an ‘art-level’ and then correctly hit the market. I decided again, but this time;

I DECIDED TO BECOME AN ICF
CERTIFIED COACH

Below is a video case story of Kentaro Hayashi and how ICF certification brought a monumental shift in his life to give an Ahaa moment to his coachees!!!

REVELATION #2

START FROM THE KNOWN…

I started inquiring about coach training and certifications, later ‘credentials’ from my inner circle. I wasn’t aware then that all these meant different things. I reached out to my friends in HR/L&D/ Training, sought their opinion and advice.

Thanks to them, I was guided to “ICF”

ICF always meant ‘integral coach factory’ in Chennai. But now, it bore another meaning for me – International Coaching Federation.

Comes the end of 2012, after six months’ sabbatical, I started my coaching-certification journey for ICF Credentials.

Personally, it was a new experience, to go through the rigor of training to become a coach. For first time, I would get up late night & attend tele- classes (ICA), apart from attending F2F sessions.

I would joke if I had been half-studious in my school/college days, I would have been elsewhere! But then, no regrets.

The beauty of this learning was it was all practical, relevant, and something I could use in my coaching practice.

Most importantly it was to facilitate a genuine, positive transformation for the willing/ready coachees.

The journey was more than ‘CERTIFICATION’

WHAT IS INTERNATIONAL
COACHING FEDERATION (ICF)

UNLIKE OTHER PROFESSIONS, COACHING IS NOT REGULATED ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.

Thomas Leonard, one of the pioneers in Coaching, started ICF in 1995 as a nonprofit organization for coaches around the world, to support each other and grow the profession.

HENCE THE NEED TO SELF-REGULATE AND MAINTAIN THE GOLD STANDARD IN THE INDUSTRY

With the support of volunteers and growing interest, ICF began its efforts to raise the profile of professional coaching.

ICF created Core Competencies and built a Code of Ethics, setting the standard in the coaching field.

An Ethical Conduct Review Process and Independent Review Board (IRB) were also established which allows consumers to file breach-of-ethics complaints. ICF’s obsession with ethics is one of the things I admire the most about it.

ICF also defined curriculum standards (accreditation) to ensure consistency in coach training, and developed an ICF Credentialing system, requiring renewal every three years. Renewal through CCEU is again one of the best practices…

ICF DEFINES COACHING AS…

PARTNERING WITH CLIENTS IN
A CREATIVE AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING PROCESS THAT INSPIRES THEM TO MAXIMIZE THEIR PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL POTENTIAL.

READ MUCH MORE INSIDE…