Opinion: More coaches should strive for accreditation

Angela Sabin  

People Management 3 Mar 2017

Too few coaches are truly qualified, writes Angela Sabin; it’s up to the best of our kind to
demonstrate our professionalism
Who would you prefer to work with: an accredited coach, or one with no accreditation? Or, to put
it another way, would you rather work with a coaching professional who can provide you with a
guarantee that their work has been scrutinised and verified independently to deliver the highest
standard of coaching available, or one who can’t?
This may sound dramatic but the world of coaching isn’t regulated, which means anyone can call
themselves a coach regardless of experience and qualifications, and get paid for it. Isn’t that a bit
like letting someone who says they’re a gas engineer work on your boiler without checking their
credentials – an explosion waiting to happen?
There is growing demand out there for accreditation, and The 6th Ridler Report: Strategic trends
in the use of coaching, confirms this: “There was an increasing requirement for external coaches
to be individually accredited by a professional coaching body (which has gone up from 54 per
cent in 2013 to 68 per cent in 2015),” it said. Organisations interviewed for the report also said
they “see accreditation as an important milestone for a coach and an indicator of a certain level
of proficiency”.
Given that the report says that “72 per cent of organisations surveyed expect to increase their
spending on coaching in the next two years”, where does that leave the coaching landscape?
There are coaches out there practising without qualifications, who have never had independent
supervision, and with no particular level of experience.
But coaching is a very complex business; you would expect a coach to have a very wide-ranging
toolkit with a high degree of knowledge, skill and experience in using that. Would you be
confident in a coach that couldn’t evidence that?
This isn’t debating qualifications – this is about what comes after. Accreditation usually comes as
a result of an assessment of professional inputs such as years of service, coaching experience,
coach training, coach mentoring and supervision, compliance and CPD. Accreditation is about
demonstrating professional development and, more importantly, competencies that are up to
date.
I often hear other coaches say: ‘I’ve been coaching for years. Why should I bother?’ For me, the
master practitioner accreditation is an important part of meeting client expectations and
demands. The European Mentoring and Coaching Council positions itself as representing the
gold standard of coaching accreditation. There are other respected accreditations but they differ
from the European Individual Accreditation, which is equivalent to any other European quality
standard. Clients are reassured that it provides emphatic evidence that I work within a rigorous
competency framework, have proven experience, practise to the highest professional standards
and, at master level, have made a significant contribution to the profession.
It’s a lot to commit to, but maybe accreditation is the benchmark the coaching sector has been
waiting for. It promotes good practice and the expectation of good practice in mentoring and
coaching.
Organisations are seeing the value in coaches who have been through an individual
accreditation process; I know, because clients tell me this. Accreditation also helps me to
immediately demonstrate the quality of my practice when responding to tenders.
I didn’t find accreditation a drag; on the contrary, I found the reflective process beneficial to my
development and the development of my practice. It is a commitment to maintaining the
reputation of the profession, it illustrates motivation and it’s a great business proposition for the
coaching sector.
Angela Sabin is principal coach at Executive Life Coaching