Coaching Qualification

Yes, I also signed up for a one year qualification as a coach like many others 😁 This was on my bucket list for some years and somehow at the beginning of this year the stone started rolling, actually thanks to John Stepper's Working Out Loud program. I was in week 11 of my second WOL Circle and the first exercise was to search for tribes you care about. The second exercise started with

Now here’s a challenging question: Are any of these groups related to your goal? [...] If the answer is no, it might be a sign that you’re not as interested in your goal as you are in other things.

This sentence made me think that it's time to start my learning journey with coaching in 2020. Because I had a different WOL goal when I was searching for tribes around coaching 😅

How I found the perfect match with a training provider for me personally

Actually it went pretty quick, although one can say there is like a training jungle and a lot of bullet points to get clarity about for oneself at the beginning:

• Different Coaching approaches, like NLP or systemic coaching
• Different accreditation levels for (inter)national professional associations
• Face to face or virtual classrooms
• Time and money investment
• And most importantly: gut feeling

What I did: I have a lot of Coaches in my personal network. So I started searching on LinkedIn and XING who of my contacts has added the qualification of a coach to their professional profile. I wrote a lot of private messages asking them if they have been satisfied with their provider and why they had chosen that specific provider. I received many helpful insights and had some longer conversations with Dr. Roscoe Araujo and Carola Werle which focused my choice on two local academies. Thanks again a lot to all who supported me with their feedback!

In parallel I searched on some professional associations for coaches which providers are accredited for that national / international associations. I scanned many websites and found one that resonated a lot with my personal motivation to become a coach. Although not in my hometown I had an introductory meeting with the teaching coach Dr. Brigitte Wolter a few hours driving. Although in the end I decided for one of the coaching academies in my hometown I can recommend her book which she has written to help people find the best provider to start their qualification as a coach.

In the end I decided for die coachingakademie for the following reasons:

1. gut feeling ➡ I immediately had a good one when I attended their information event
2. comfort ➡ the training school isn't far away from were I live
3. personal recommendation by their Alumna Carola Werle with helpful insights on the qualification process
4. Alumni network ➡ I think the exchange will be helpful after graduating

My motivation

Three columns define my motivation to invest time and money in a qualification while working full time:

1. Personal development: on a one year qualification one internalizes an attitude that resonates with my beliefs and experiences.
2. Digital Transformation: I want to support employees and leaders to navigate better through the constant change and complexity of our today's world because I believe Coaching is a good method to deal with it.
3. Lead as a coach: leadership culture is changing and I was lucky to experience myself with my former team leader Rolf Müller how empowering it is to have a team leader with a coaching qualification. That's why I want to improve my own leadership skills more into that direction.

Coaching vs. Mentoring

For those who aren't that familiar with these two disciplines it's often not clear, what's the difference. That's why Anja Karina Mundinger 安雅 focused in one of her episodes of her coaching podcast [German] on that topic. The two of us got to know via PANDA | The Women Leadership Network where she was searching for an expert to bring more clarity into it.

And I hope sharing my experiences and knowledge of

• being a Mentee and Coachee,
• being a Mentor and now about to become a Coach,
• formal and informal Mentoring and
• Reverse-Mentoring

helps you to get a better understanding in which situation you'd chose a Mentor and when a Coach is the right choice.

Thanks again for your inspiring book present Trillion Dollar Coach - The Leadership Handbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell!

Enjoy our conversation [39 min] on your preferred player:

1. Spotify
2. Apple Podcast
3. Her Homepage
4. Google Podcasts
5. Anchor.fm

Hopefully outlining my own paths so far will help some of you signing up themselves for the right qualification as a coach or inspire others to learn more about Coaching and Mentoring and why both is important in the corporate context 😊