What is Coaching?
Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Coaches help people improve their performance and enhance the quality of their lives.

Coaches are trained to listen, to observe and to customize their approach to individual client needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach's job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has. While the coach provides feedback and an objective perspective, the client is responsible for taking the steps to produce the results he or she desires.

Coaching is an interactive process that helps individuals and organizations to develop more rapidly and produce more satisfying results. Coaches work with clients in all areas including business, career, finances, health and relationships. As a result of coaching, clients set better goals, take more action, make better decisions, and more fully use their natural strengths.

People hire a coach when they are starting a new business, making a career transition, reevaluating their life choices, working toward challenging goals, or simply feeling ready for a personal or professional breakthrough.

We estimate that there are currently 50,000 part-time and full-time coaches worldwide. Coaching has been covered extensively in Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Money, USA Today, Fast Company, New Age Journal, Industry Week, Inc., the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Management Review, Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Men's Health, Bloomberg Personal, Newsday, etc.

ICF Ethical Guidelines
The ICF is the leader in developing a definition and philosophy of coaching, as well as establishing a set of ethical standards that ICF members pledge to uphold. The International Coach Federation ("ICF") is committed to high ethical standards for coaches.

The ICF is also committed to providing a forum where the public can bring complaints about alleged unethical conduct by ICF members and ICF credentialed coaches. The ICF adopted a policy and set of procedures that provide for review, investigation and response to alleged unethical practices or behavior deviating from the established ICF Code of Ethics.

For more information on ICF's Code of Ethics and the Ethical Conduct Review Process please click here to open the ICF Ethical Guidelines document in pdf format:

 ICF Ethical Guidelines (30 KB)