Certified Professional Co-Active Coaches: Why they Enjoy Coaching

The evidence-base for the practice of coaching continues to flourish, despite the fact that very little is known about the practitioners (i.e. the coaches) themselves. It is of value to understand how coaches perceive their practice. Such information can be utilized to create a common knowledge-base about coaches that can be used, in turn, to track trends and forward research that evaluates coaching services. As the use of Co-Active coaching in facilitating behaviour change continues to rise it becomes important to learn more about Certified-Professional Co-Active Coaches (CPCC). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate what CPCCs enjoy about being coaches. These results were contained within a larger survey. A total of 390 CPCCs who were over 18 years of age, could read English, and had access to the Internet participated in the current study. Findings included: that witnessing clients change their lives; the sense of satisfaction and fulfillment from coaching; the collaborative relationship with clients; the autonomy and flexibility of the profession; and the gratification received from using their skill set were the main reasons CPCCs enjoyed coaching. This paper elaborates on these findings and makes suggestions for future research