More than two decades of research, and our own experience of coaching leaders and executive teams, shows that it’s easy to lead when conditions are positive. However, strong leaders differentiate themselves when the organisation or…
You’re considering getting trained in coaching and wonder which program you should attend?
NOTE: the following is based on our current understanding of the market of coach certification programs. As it is a highly dynamic industry, we can not guarantee for the accuracy of the information presented here. We will keep updating this page on a regular basis as we gain new insights/information.
Please contact us if you notice any inaccuracies or updates so that we can keep this page up-to-date. Thank you!
When deciding on a coach certification program, first you’ll need to differentiate between certification by any coaching institute and international certification by an independent coach certification body. Generally speaking, coach certificates from the coach training provider tend to have less credibiltiy than coach credentials issued by a renown international coach certification body.
International Coach Certification Bodies
The most well-known coach certification bodies appear to be:
WABC is the only one that focuses purely on business/executive/corporate coaching while ICF, IAC and EMCC certify any kind of coaching.
Requirements to achieve international coach certification:
For WABC, you’ll need to go through a WABC accredited program. Upon successful completion, you’ll be eligible to receive the WABC certificate. They have numerous levels of certification, starting with the ‘Registered Corporate Coach’, etc.
For IAC, they use a different approach in that they don’t really care what kind of program you have attended or how you achieved your coaching mastery, they just want to see that you can coach at a very proficient level. For that you’ll need to complete an online exam followed by submitting two 30 minutes coach recordings (audio) during which you will need to display the 9 coaching masteries as defined by IAC at a highly proficient level. More info
For ICF (the currently most well-known and largest organization), you have 3 ways of getting certified: through the ‘Portfolio’ route if you attended programs that are NOT ICF approved/accredited; through the ACSTH (Accredited Coach Specific Training Hours) route for ICF ACSTH approved programs or through ACTP route for ACTP (Accredited Coach Training Program) accredited programs. More info
We are not very familiar with the EMCC certification process as it is Europe based only (and we’re based in Asia where EMCC is not active). Find out more…
Finding Coach Training Providers
How each coach training provider structures their program is really different case by case.
Here are some options how you could identify coach training providers:
Selecting the ‘Right’ Program
In order to come to a conclusion which program you should attend, I suggest to answer the following 10 questions / consider the following points:
We hope these questions will help you make a decision.
Details of Progress-U’s Coach Certification Programs
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