As I explore the question in this posting’s title, I am fully aware of another question that it implies: to what extent are the requirements of the coach different for Executive and Life Coaching? I make a mental note to offer my own view as part of writing this posting.

Let’s be clear, both Life and Executive Coaching require highly developed coaching skills. Many authors have attempted to describe them and professional bodies also have their definitions. This is a challenge: in truth, the skilled coach embodies a way of being which is reflected at every level, from their readily visible knowledge and skills to the often implicit values, beliefs and even identity on which their knowledge and skills rest.

These coaching skills enable coaches to establish and work with clients in a relationship of deep trust and respect, even whilst addressing difficult areas in the client’s life and work. As well as creating an initial agreement which sets the boundaries of the coaching relationship and defines how coach and client will work together, the coach has to be flexible, responding with curiosity to whatever the client brings. Practitioners of co-active coaching call this “dancing in the moment”, a term which recognises that the coach does not come with the answers but, rather, facilitates the process by which the client finds his or her own answers. Working with clients is likely to involve having conversations of a depth clients have not experienced elsewhere.

Many coaches can point to an extensive professional training that underpins their work, together with ongoing professional development: working with their own coach and working under the supervision of another coach is likely to be the tip of the iceberg. For me, this implies an authenticity as a learner which has been developed over a number of years. It’s not only that the coach has developed his or her craft but also that he or she is a learner who sees learning as an ongoing, life-long commitment.

This commitment to learning makes a number of significant contributions to coaching, whether Life or Executive. The coach has knowledge and insight that clients may not have. This ranges from (for example) insights into the way organisations work, through insights into the way individuals work to insights into the experience of being a learner. Thus, the coach’s professional development as a coach is a beginning but not the end. The coach who has learned to ask challenging questions more widely in his or her life is well equipped to ask questions in coaching. The coach who has faced his or her own fears is able to support clients in facing their own, even though they may not be the same as the coach’s.

It’s at this point that I come to the differences in the requirements of the coach of Life and Executive Coaching. For me this is a “both… and” question: at times, in the words of Niels Bohr, the opposite is also true. Each coach needs to be able to command the respect and trust of his or her clients who may have different expectations of their coach. The life client may be in search of empathy and understanding from a coach who is going to work with him or her in every area of his or her life. The executive client may look for signs that the coach has a deep understanding of life at the top of an organisation. Both may look for knowledge. Both may look for relevant experience. Both may look for a coach who has a passion for the field in which s/he works.

At the same time, such things as knowledge and past experience can be an impediment to coaching if they are not coupled with the kind of skills as a coach and a learner that I have described above. The executive-turned-coach may be trading on knowledge whilst lacking the skills to facilitate the client’s own process or, worse still, whilst having been ineffective in a senior executive role. The life coach may have deep empathy for the client who is going through experiences he or she has also struggled with and be poorly equipped to help the client to find the learning that will heal and transform.

In my view and in the view of many coaches, the most able coaches can and do support clients with both the life and the work piece so that the label Life or Executive Coach reflects more than anything a positioning in the marketplace. (I say more about this in my postings “Executive” and “Life” Coaching: Finding your place in the marketplace and “Executive” and “Life” Coaching: choosing the right coach for you).

Perhaps the quote below, from a colleague who responded to my posting on this subject, best illustrates the paradoxes inherent in trying to distinguish between different kinds of coaching:

For years I have literally battled with, disliking “life coach”, and focusing on small business coaching yet my greatest gift and my greatest joy in coaching is the “life” piece which is needed in the foundation to be successful in business.

But my clients are ready to hire for this – they want to hire me to help their business. They always say the “personal part” is such a bonus and now they know what they know they can’t imagine not having it. But they GROANED at doing any personal stuff up front, and wanted to get on to the business!