Question: It seems that coaching just sprung up out of nowhere. Where did it actually come from? Who invented it?

Answer: We’ve had football coaches, voice coaches, track coaches and acting coaches for ages, but it seems like just yesterday that life coaches, business coaches and executive coaches started springing up everywhere. What the heck happened? And why is there now something totally separate from sport and the arts called the International Coach Federation with over 14,000 members in more than 80 countries? The emergence and growth of coaching has been amazing.

Most people are surprised to learn that coaching actually began about 30 years ago with people in different fields starting to build what has become a new profession. Efforts on a number of fronts have come together in the approaches and skills that we now call coaching. All of this effort addressed one major question. What is the best way to help intelligent and capable people achieve their goals faster?

 

On one hand, new perspectives in sport coaching were seen to have great potential for enhancing performance in other fields including organizational leadership. In another arena, a small network of consultants began to use the term coaching for an equally innovative approach to helping their clients reach personal and professional objectives. These two arms of coaching came together forming a distinctly new model for helping people work, live and lead more effectively. Professionals from fields like psychology and leadership development joined the effort to refine and expand coaching methods.

 

 

Not surprisingly, there have been a few notable leaders in the field who wrote the first books, shared their ideas, and started the process of setting standards for training and accreditation. Anyone who has ever experienced working with a good coach has these “pioneers” to thank. And frankly, so do I. Executive coaching is constantly interesting and meaningful work.

 

Where will it go next? The profession still has a lot of maturing to do, but we are already seeing a number of universities jumping on board to offer certificate programs and even Masters degrees in coaching. My guess is that we will see higher training standards, and greater specialization with areas like leadership and business coaching being clearly distinguished from personal and career coaching.