This debate has been buzzing around the Australian corporate coaching world over the recent past and is becoming increasingly relevant now that the impact of executive coaching is being felt.
More and more organisations are adopting executive coaching programs with their senior management and leadership teams and their experiences have overall seemed to prove quite positive.
With the interest in executive coaching on the rise more and more executive coaching professionals are entering the market to take advantage of this fairly lucrative industry.
But who are those that are claiming that they indeed can coach at senior leadership levels and promise to transform organisations into profitable enterprises with a satisfied and happy workforce?
Is the attraction of a helping hand, shared burdens and a promise of future success sufficient to entice Australian business to dig deep and invest in executive coaching no matter the qualification or experiential successes of the coach?
While admittedly there are many worthy and experienced executive coaching professionals there is no regulation as yet as to executive coaching accreditation.
There are coaching organisations as well as academic programs to cater for those executive coaching professionals that choose accreditation and qualification but it is solely at their own peril and not a regulatory requirement.
So will regulation be compulsory and is it necessary for the industry to try and set a standard for executive coaching through accreditation programs?
If indeed it does, it would beg the question wether a Welch, a Branson, a Murdoch or a Lowy would require accreditation or qualification to justify their existence as an executive coaching professional?
Furthermore, as with the psychologists and social workers would it be advisable that the practitioner have some support and opportunity to debrief their challenging scenarios with those who have successfully walked down similar paths before them?
All these questions are relevant and their answers are not that straight forward.
Form the way the executive coaching industry is heading in Australia I wouldn’t be surprised if some sort of accreditation or experiential success would become a requirement before any executive coaching program was to be accepted and implemented.
This will become especially relevant when more and more executive coaching professionals enter the market. Not only will it serve to ensure high standards of coaching excellence but will also weed out those who simply don’t cut the mustard.
As far as support for executive coaching professionals in concerned unfortunately I cannot see any immediate movement to make this compulsory.
If executive coaches preach the value of coaching surely it should apply to them as well? After all can we ever be objective about ourselves?
Meiron Lees is the director of InnerCents, the company is a leading corporate coaching and training company specializing in
corporate coaching,
executive coaching,
leadership training, ,
leadership management training and sales negotiation training.