Standards for Coaches
The IOBC competence profile for coaches ensures and promotes quality in business coaching.
Coaching requires appropriate knowledge and skills to understand what is happening and what is at stake intrapersonally, interpersonally, and entrepreneurially. This requires competences, which are in turn acquired based on knowledge.
Coaching competence is the ability to reflect on and act appropriately in the context of person-oriented dialogical consulting people in the world of work. On the one hand, this refers to a doing, i.e. the ability to practice or effect something. On the other hand, it means (self-)reflectivity; the ability to reflect when, how and why actions or reactions are appropriate.
Five Fields of Competence
The Coach Competence Model (CCM) describes concrete requirements of a professional business coach in five fields of competence - containing a total of 29 competence clusters and 117 competences, aligned to the coach’s qualification level:
- Associate Coach (IOBC) – up to 3 years of coaching experience
- Professional Coach (IOBC) – at least 3 years of coaching experience
- Senior Coach (IOBC) – at least 5 years of coaching experience
Coaching requires competences. Worldwide.
The Coach Competence Model (CCM) describes competences for:
- (Self-)Reflection - Personal Skills
- Relationship Management - Social skills
- Knowledge - Professional competences
- Methods - Methodological competences
- Experience - Field and functional competences
What is a competence?
A competence is a disposition for performance-oriented behavior. A personal competence is characterized by:
- Coping with complex requirements
- Creative problem solving
- Solution-oriented behavior
- An alignment of personality traits, abilities and motives
- Outcome and context relevance
- An ability and desire for self-development
Quality standards for business coaching
Coach Competence Model (CCM)
Coaching need methods. Worldwide.
Methodological competences means:
dialog competence, planning competence, analytical competence, didactic competence and cognitive-emotive development competence.
Coaching needs experience. Worldwide.
Field and functional competence means: professionalism, field and functional experience, educational training and development, organizational competence, role awareness and micropolitical skill.
Coaching needs knowledge. Worldwide.
Professional competence means:
general education, philosophical, sociological, educational, psychological and economic resources and resources of coaching research, legal resources and integration of theory and practice.
Coaching needs the ability of building and designing relationships. Worldwide.
Social-communicative competence means:
competence in relationship, ability to communicate, self-confidence and reflectivity.
Coaching needs (self-)reflection. Worldwide.
Personality / Self-Competence: motivation, performance orientation, perceptual faculty, ability to judge, ability to learn and develop as well as self-regulation.
Our requirements for coaches are based on five fields of competence containing multiple competence clusters.
The model is currently being scientifically evaluated by the University of Salzburg.
More information on the five fields of competence
The IOBC Coaching Compendium is a comprehensive document setting out our quality standards for coaches, coaching processes, coaching ethics, and coaching education & training.
The IOBC is a signatory to and an active contributor to the current revised version of the Global Code of Ethics. The Code is intended as a guide and source of guidance, setting out expectations for best practice in coaching. Particularly against the backdrop of increasing market uncertainty, this commitment sends a strong signal in favour of transparency, quality and international standards in business coaching.
* The Global Code of Ethics will soon be available in German and other languages as well.