There are rewards. There are rankings. There is reality. The best coach is the one who helps you in real life. It is not necessarily the one who won an award in 2017 on list xyz. It is not mandatory the one advertising in Forbes magazine. It is the one who suits your issue, your personality, and gets you ahead in a reasonable amount of time. Consequently, I may not be the best coach for you – automatically and for each situation and concern. So, how would you find out if I am the right one for you now?
How to choose the right coach
As there are many different types of coaches and many different forms of coaching, the right coach depends on your concern or topic. What do you want to solve? Where do you want to get ahead? Is it a general question in life? Does your partnership not work out as you wish for? Is an important presentation coming up and your are nervous about it?
First step is to decide your topic. This brings down the number of potential coaches for you in this specific situation. Do you feel overwhelmed by work? You don’t get along with your partner anymore? You want kick off your career and hit always a glass ceiling? For example, I myself focus on life and executive coaching with the leaning towards institutions and civil society organizations. Thus, I decline for example pure partnership issues unless they are related to a main topic of life coaching.
Second: Do you have any preference for a specific form of coaching already? I offer systemic coaching and might add on other methods like hypnosis, NLP or in business Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching or other – depending on your situation and objectives. There are other fantastic ways to get ahead, which I don’t offer, e.g. leadership coaching with horses.
Third, do you need or wish a personality assessment? If not, you can skip this point. If yes, do you require or want a certain valid assessment of your personality as baseline of development. And does the coach offer this personality assessment? I am certified for Hogan Assessments and Marshall Goldsmith Global Leadership Assessment (GLA). I’ve chosen those Assessment certifications because I am persuaded that those are the best in the market and the most supportive for self-awareness and further development.
Fourth point: the personality of the coach and yours should match. That means, the coach is made for you. That doesn’t implicate that you always like the coach during all the sessions. You pay for effectiveness and not kindness. If you want to get ahead with your questions good coaching can make you feel temporarily uncomfortable.
Fifth, have a short talk. After having reduced the number of possible coaches talk the top five. Research has shown that 33 milliseconds exposure to a face is sufficient for people to decide whether the face looks trustworthy or not. And studies1 confirmed that we are mostly right with this first impression. So, check your first impressions and then decide – in the best case for me 😉
1 Zebrowitz LA, Montepare JM. Psychology, Appearance DOES matter. Science, 2005, vol. 308 (pg. 1565-6)
Oosterhof NN, Todorov A. The functional basis of face evaluation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U S A, 2008, vol. 105 (pg. 11087-92).
To find out whether I am a suitable coach for you, give it a try. Schedule free 15 min. phone call and get your first impression! Just click on one of the two buttons below.