Applying to certify as a master certified coach requires submitting to evaluators a recorded coaching call demonstrating masterful coaching. Which one to choose when so many are flawed?

The final cut. Where (and why) do I still fall out of coaching mastery?

Over the last year, I’ve listened to 35 different coaching calls I’ve conducted and recorded with a quest to submit one recording (a beautiful recording) to the International Coaching Federation (ICF). I’ve created a self-imposed deadline of Lunar New Year, January 29, Wednesday. (I know my critical mind. No deadline? My Avoider and Stickler saboteurs will prevail.)

If you’ve followed my Competency No 5 podcast and my Medium musings, you’ll know what this is about: I’m attempting to join the top 4% of coaches globally to certify as a Master Certified Coach. Evaluators at the ICF, the world’s largest nonprofit of coaches, determine this fate. And I’ve done (almost) everything to prep.

I’ve exceeded the 2,500 required individual coaching hours with over 8,500 1:1 sessions. I’ve trained the required 200 hours and mentored at least ten times across two fabulous mentors. All that remains? Submitting a coaching call, one clearly honoring the eight core competencies the ICF deems, well, “masterful.” But which one? So far, none have made the cut.

This conundrum makes me wonder: What signals and does not signal active listening and coaching excellence? Which competencies can still challenge us, even after beaucoup coaching sessions? Here lie my cross-check, self-editing questions, the competencies to better honor to help get there, and musings on what’s going on when I don’t. I’m ready, to make the final cut. (Note to my readers: You can hear me read this essay in this week’s Competency No 5 podcast.)

Does the coaching connect and build trust?

A coaching call without connection will certainly yield a crumby conversation and elicit boos and raspberries from our evaluators. I know I’m disconnected when:

• My mind wanders too much
• My ideas and beliefs become the focus vs the coachee’s (even for a nano)
• Our focus (or at least my focus) is on me and how I’m performing vs the coaching itself

The competencies I must honor to get there?

Competency No 6: Conveying, feeling, and showing connection with our coachee, which deeply honors actively listening: focusing on what the client is and is not saying to fully understand the context of the client systems and to support their self expression.

Competency No 5: Maintaining presence. Staying fully conscious, present, open, flexible, and grounded. With no connection nor trust, we’re not grounded.

Fixes that might help: Better defend the time around the call. Most recordings I’ve abandoned were conducted amidst a flurry of calls. Ground prior and during. Sing. Hydrate, use the restroom, and if hungry, eat. Ensure your location’s conducive to focus.

Do we establish the topic, focus, and hopes?

As evaluating calls with my mentors, I’ve abandoned several calls deeply connecting me with my coachee because the topic’s wispy or delayed. MCC Coach Ben Dooley, my mentor, warns our ICF evaluators will get antsy if we do not promptly clarify the topic, scope, and the coachee’s hopes, soon after (or as) we connect.

This rule challenges me still.Coaching conversations often start with connecting, updating, and sharing what’s on their minds. Clarifying our topic can feel intrusive. I’ve podcasted on this struggle here.

We must also delicately balance overly structuring with staying connected and present. My dear mentor coach Sophia Casey duly noted I sound prosaic and formulaic when asking for clarity too briskly. And yet spending too much time ‘catching up,’ (alas) eliminates us from that mastery level.

The competencies to better honor? Competency No 3: Establishes and maintains agreements. Particularly steps 6 through 10, which include:

• confirming and reconfirming what they want to accomplish
• resolving what needs to resolve to accomplish this goal
• defining how they’ll measure that success
• determining how long to coach for
• changing the direction, only if the coachee asks us to
• partnering to close the session

Fixes that might help: Ground. Slow. Trust: clarifying questions help anchor and even distill the conversation. The clearer the coachee feels on the what, why, and how, the less either of us pour in. I podcasted on this idea here.

Is this pure coaching?

Real-world coaching often seesaws between coaching and mentoring; training, and even consulting. If you’ve a communications or other niche, your coachees appreciate clarity on their personal challenge to reveal roadblocks, fixed mindsets, and with that, more legitimate, longer-lasting co-created tactics. Often, they ask for your vital input in their opening.

May we co-create within a coaching call and in masterful ways the ICF loves? Maybe! But if so, some parameters must exist:

• make it a light offering with permission and consent from our coachee
• ensure the coachee asks for that guidance from you as their coach, in the opening, and then during the coaching

Where do I fall out of pure coaching? My recordings show the truth. Often at the end of the call or when something my coachee lays down feels familiar, I’ll pour in some insights or offer an idea. Having heard me do this over and over, I now know why: I fail to stay confident and fail to trust the process, which I get to next.

The competency to better honor? Competency No 1: Demonstrates ethical practice, which includes maintaining the distinctions between coaching, consulting, psychotherapy and other support professions.

Fixes that might help: Coach Ben rightfully suggests quit resisting the ICF rules. Know it’s our job to help our evaluators experience our love for coaching with us. “Don’t make them work too hard to notice how well we understand their competencies and seek to honor them,” he says. “Invite them into this beautiful, centered communication.”

Also, give myself grace. I’ve entered coaching from bossy professions (journalism and academia/storytelling consulting) which required me pouring in. Coaching’s different. Stay patient as I adjust.

Do I coach confidently?

My big takeaway having listened to 35 recorded coaching calls purely through this MCC lens? I’m often confident, calm, and locked in, for parts of the call — large chunks of the call, but not for the entirety.

Something impulsive (in each of the recordings I’m abandoning) causes me to no longer trust the coaching is “enough.” My client sounds, seems, and feels deeply clear. They have their action steps. The call becomes replete. And then I offer: “by the way… “ or “you might also consider this.”

This moment (even when asking permission) makes me cringe. There’s no need. May the ICF agree? Possibly. Or maybe it’s ok. Either way, when I’m pouring in without my coachee asking, I fall out of mastery.

The competencies I must honor to get there? Competency No 2: Embodies a coaching mindset, which the ICF defines as: develops and maintains a mindset that is open, curious, flexible and client-centered. This mindset asks that the coach:

1. Remains aware of and open to the influence of context and culture on self and others
2. Uses awareness of self and one’s intuition to benefit clients
3. Develops and maintains the ability to regulate one’s emotions
4. Mentally and emotionally prepares for sessions
5. Seeks help from outside sources when necessary

Fixes that might help:

• Place a post-it note beside me as I coach to “resist pouring in.”
• Manage my Stickler saboteur whose strength is simply quality. She’s convinced that quality coaching’s only quality when I add my two cents or a big massive epiphany or giant, waterfalls of tears occur. Not true.
• Know: Quality coaching’s requires partnering well and trusting the process and my coachee. Hold my coachee as capable, competent, and resourceful. They’ve got this. So, hold it.

Post script to this essay: Yesterday morning, soon after editing this essay, I recorded my first coaching call I feel respectfully and properly honors MCC level ICF core competencies. I spoke far less. I poured in little. We both felt grounded and peaceful and even got emotional after on how beautiful the experience was actively listening at that level. Clarifying which competencies I honor and dishonor — and the work arounds — helped!

I feel comfortable submitting this recording to the ICF (if my dear Coach Ben approves). I feel inspired also to bring active listening to more leaders by designing workshops. Powerful stuff. I’ll essay on what just happened. It feels so extraordinary — a breakthrough. In the meantime, dear readers, thank you for riding with me.

Debbi Gardiner McCullough has reinvented three times across three continents and three industries, most recently leaving academia after 19 years of service to train to become a coach. From Wisconsin, she owns and runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a communications coach to leaders all over the globe.