We’re building a solid international presence online on various social media platforms – here’s another taster of what’s being said

Should coaching be regulated in the UK?

Since our last issue, there’s been a shift away from voters wanting government-regulated coaching to voting for regulation by professional body/ies.

YES, by the government: 12% (56% last issue)
YES, by professional body/ies: 48% (22% last issue)
NO, it should be self-regulated: 40% (22% last issue)

What do you think? Cast your vote at http://poll.fm/1khus

Regulation of any profession starts with good intentions. It is often said that it helps create a quality standard and impose it on wayward professionals or members of that occupation. Because of the lack of rigorous research, however, regulation and certification devolves into assessing input activities, such as “how many courses have you taken?”; “how many hours have you practised?”. This is a far cry from showing evidence that the people with whom you work actually change, improve and perform in their lives and work better than before the service was provided.

In every profession or occupation that is or has been regulated, from medicine to accounting to plumbing, it has three major consequences: first, it institutionalises mediocrity and brings the quality of delivery down to a least common denominator; second, it creates forces that inhibit adaptation and change, as well as reifying current practices as if they work when most of the time no one has done the research to show it does; and third, it excludes groups not “desired” by the mainstream purveyors of the profession or occupation. For example, for many years such practices kept women from being plumbers, joiners, doctors, architects, and other occupations. I am vehemently against any form of imposed regulation.

Richard Boyatzis, professor of organizational behavior, psychology and cognitive neuroscience, Case Western Reserve University, US

Before we have a UK drive for the regulation of coaching the existing professional bodies and coaches need to grasp what the impact would be on them and their clients. In the case of psychologists, their professional body is no longer essential for an individual psychologist, even though it may provide a good service to its members through networking, journals and CPD.

Once the Health Professions Council (HPC) process is in operation it won’t stop, and the outcome may not be what the professional bodies and coaches actually want. The UK counselling and psychotherapy professions are going through the HPC consultation process and learning that the outcome may not be what was hoped for. Perhaps we should wait and see what happens to them first before the drive for state regulation in coaching takes off.

One alternative would be for the professional coaching bodies to work together and maintain their own accreditation systems, but also have a shared joint register of accredited members. This is what the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies and the Association for Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy have done with cognitive behavioural therapy – the public can check whether someone is on the joint UK CBT Register.

Stephen Palmer, professor and director, Coaching Psychology Unit, City University, London, and director at the Centre for Coaching, London

Other discussion threads on LinkedIn include:

  • What’s a coaching culture? Posted: Ray Lamb, UK
  • Which personalities perform best at work? Posted: Jim Bright, Sydney, Australia
  • To niche or not to niche? Posted: Dorothy Nesbit, UK
  • Therapy versus coaching – what are the differences? Posted: Peter MacKechnie, Edinburgh, Scotland

Further discussion threads:

  • Have you ever coached a pair of clients together?
  • Does location make a difference in coaching?
  • What is the worst example of poor coaching practice you’ve come across?
  • www.coaching-at-work.com/discussions-and-polls

Find us online at:

At the European Mentoring and Coaching Council UK’s conference in May, John Blakey, Myles Downey and David Megginson are debating these questions (posted on Linkedin by Blakey):

  • In what percentage of your coaching time do you adopt a pure non-directive approach? What circumstances, if any, prompt you to deviate from this coaching principle?
  • What is the value of being non-directive? What makes it important? How is being directive not valuable?

My own interpretation of the way I coach says I am non-directive between 80 and 90 per cent of the time, and that I assume a directive approach when I unconsciously try to change my client’s mind, when I am trapped in a thread of thought that is mine, not theirs, and try to lead them to the conclusions I’ve made. Should coaching be non-directive in essence, or is a directive approach to coaching also coaching?

Sandro da Silva, business and life coach, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

I spend between 80 and 90 per cent of my time in non-directive mode, but for 10 to 20 per cent of the time I use my intuition to guide me as to when to make more directive interventions, such as a burst of feedback or challenge. When the directive input arises from my intuition then I trust that my ego is not involved!

John Blakey, lead partner, 121partners

Coaching is most powerful when my clients and I co-create a space where we can allow “whatever has to emerge” to emerge and be experienced, honoured. The phenomenological, non-directive communicative space creation helps facilitate the experience of our innermost sense of being and what our thoughts and feelings really mean.

Jens Boris Larsen, chair at Society of Evidence-based Coaching of the Danish Psychological Association

Coaching at Work, Volume 5, Issue 3