ICF Coaching Competencies – Cultivates Trust And Safety With Your Coaching Clients

The ICF Coaching competencies are essential to every professional coach’s success, both ICF and Non-ICF affiliated coaches, and overall, to the practice of coaching.

Who is The International Coach Federation?

The International Coach Federation (ICF) is the leading global organization for coaches and it currently boasts of over 20,000 members worldwide in more than 100 countries. The organization is committed to advancing the coaching profession by establishing exceptional standards, providing independent certification, and building a worldwide network of trained coaching professionals. The ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that undoubtedly inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.

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Understanding The ICF Coaching Competencies

The international Coach Federation carefully developed the ICF core competencies to understand better the skills and approaches used within today’s coaching profession. They were also established to help distinguish their coaches from coaches certified through other organizations.

The organization initially established eleven core coaching competencies that were developed to support a broader understanding of the skills and approaches used within today’s coaching profession. They were also designed to help coaches calibrate the level of alignment between the coach-specific training expected and the training they have experienced. The Core Competencies are grouped into four clusters according to those that fit together logically based on common ways of looking at each group’s competencies.

About The New Fourth Competency,Cultivating Trust And Safety

In October 2019, the International Coach Federation (ICF) updated the ICF Coaching Competencies from eleven to eight coaching competencies, and this marked its first update since the competencies’ creation in 1998. The revised Core Competencies were announced publicly and released on the ICF website in November 2019. This new model is scheduled to go into effect in January 2021.

Cultivating Trust and Safety: Being an expert or skilled in this competency is critical to your relationship with coaching clients. It is vital to foster a safe, supportive environment that generously allows the client to share freely. You can also learn how to maintain mutual respect and a trustful coaching partnership.

How does establishing trust and intimacy with the client as a life coach contribute to a successful coaching relationship?

We can realistically achieve this through the following six ways:

Seeking to understand the client within their context may include their identity, environment, experiences, values, and beliefs.
Demonstrating respect for the client’s identity, perceptions, style, and language and adapts coaching to the client.
Acknowledging and respecting the client’s unique talents, insights, and work in the coaching process.
Showing support, empathy, and concern for the client.
Acknowledging and supporting the client’s expression of feelings, perceptions, concerns, beliefs, and suggestions.
Demonstrating openness and transparency to display vulnerability and build trust with the client.

The new ICF competency model offers a more straightforward, more streamlined structure and it seamlessly integrates consistent concise language. We hope that these ICF coaching competencies shall continually be improved upon as the coaching profession expands.

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