Executive coaching · Melbourne & online worldwide

How to choose an executive coach

Check four things: a credential from a recognised body, a named training lineage, ongoing supervision, and a free introductory call that leaves you clearer rather than sold to. Everything else is a matter of fit, and fit is the part that decides whether the work goes anywhere.

This page is written to be useful whether or not you end up working with me. If it helps you choose someone else, it's done its job. Coaching only works when the fit is right, and a mismatched engagement wastes six months of a senior leader's attention.

Coaching is unregulated, which changes what you're checking

There's no registration requirement for coaches in Australia. Anyone can use the title, set a fee and start tomorrow. Psychologists and other health practitioners are registered with AHPRA and answerable to a national board. Coaches aren't, and that difference is worth holding in mind for the whole process.

What exists instead is voluntary accreditation. The International Coaching Federation is the most widely recognised, and there are others including the EMCC and the Association for Coaching. A credential from any of them means someone chose to be assessed against a published standard when nothing compelled them to.

What the ICF levels mean

The ICF issues three credentials, ACC, PCC and MCC, with requirements that step up in accredited training hours, logged client hours and assessment. Each has to be renewed with continuing education, so it reflects current practice rather than a course completed years ago. The thresholds have been revised over time, so check the ICF site for the current numbers if you want the detail.

What a credential tells you is that someone completed recognised training and was measured against a standard. It doesn't tell you whether they'll be right for you, and plenty of capable coaches work outside these systems. Treat it as a floor.

Ask where their training comes from

A coach should be able to name the programme they trained through and describe the approach it teaches. Coaching schools differ considerably, and the differences show up in what actually happens in the room. Some are behavioural and goal-focused. Some work developmentally with how a person makes meaning. Some are somatic, working with the body and the nervous system.

None of these is better in the abstract. What matters is whether the method reaches the thing you're stuck on. If you've had coaching before, understood your patterns clearly, and watched them run anyway, a coach whose method stops at insight and accountability will probably produce the same result again.

Supervision, and why it's the question most people skip

Ask who supervises them. Coaching supervision means a coach takes their own work to a more experienced practitioner regularly, to examine what they might be missing. It's standard in the therapy world and patchy in coaching, which is why the question is worth asking.

A coach in supervision has somewhere to take their blind spots. A coach without it has only their own judgment about their own judgment, which is a thinner safety net than it sounds.

What the introductory call should do

Almost every coach offers a free first conversation, usually 30 minutes. Treat it as the main piece of evidence you'll get, well ahead of the website.

By the end you should have a clearer sense of your own situation than you started with. That's the signal. A coach who spends the call describing their methodology, or handling your questions as objections, has told you what the engagement will feel like.

Questions worth asking

• What's your training, and who supervises your work?
• What kinds of situations do you find you're most useful for, and what do you refer out?
• What happens at the three-month mark if this isn't working?
• How do you handle confidentiality when an organisation is paying?
• What can coaching not do?

That last one is the most revealing. A coach who can answer it specifically has thought about the limits of their work. A coach who deflects it is selling.

Signals that should give you pause

• Guaranteed outcomes. Nobody can promise a result that depends this heavily on you.
• No introductory call, or a call that's really a sales call. Fit can't be assessed from a brochure.
• A proprietary method that can't be explained. Frameworks are fine. Mystery isn't.
• Pressure to commit to twelve months before you've worked together once.
• Discomfort when you mention speaking to other coaches.
• No clear position on where coaching stops and therapy starts. Senior leaders under sustained pressure sometimes need something other than coaching, and a coach should be able to recognise that and say so.

When your organisation is paying

Sponsored coaching adds a third party, and the arrangement needs to be explicit before the first session. The standard approach is three-way contracting, where you, the coach and the sponsor agree what gets shared. Development goals and progress against them may go to the sponsor. What you actually say in sessions stays between you and the coach.

Get that boundary stated out loud, ideally with your sponsor in the room. If a coach is vague about it, the engagement will be compromised from the start, because you'll be managing what you say for six months.

How to think about the fee

Rates for experienced executive coaches in Australia vary widely, and price tracks experience, scope and what sits around the sessions rather than quality in any reliable way. A more useful question is what an engagement totals and what it's being weighed against.

My own figures are on the cost of executive coaching page, along with what drives them. If you're comparing several coaches, ask each for the total rather than the session rate, since session counts differ.

Fit is the variable that matters most

Research on coaching and on therapy has consistently found the working relationship to be among the strongest predictors of outcome, ahead of technique. My reading of that literature is that it holds up, though I'd encourage you to look at it yourself rather than take my summary for it.

Practically, it means the coach you feel able to be honest with will do more for you than the one with the better credential list. If you find yourself managing your image in the introductory call, that's information.

Where to look next

• What to expect from executive coaching covers the mechanics once you've chosen someone
• The executive coaching practice sets out how I work and who it suits
• Somatic executive coaching explains the method, if the insight-hasn't-shifted-it problem is familiar
• Leadership coaching in Melbourne is the better starting point if you lead people below executive level

For transparency, my own answers

I'm an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, also certified as an Integral Coach through New Ventures West and trained in Internal Family Systems. I hold the Executive Master in Change from INSEAD, serve on the transformation faculty of Mobius Executive Leadership, and coach executive presence and leadership communications with Stand & Deliver. I'm in supervision and in my own therapy, and I've been in both continuously since I started this work. More about how I got here.

Rudi Doku · Executive Coach (ICF PCC) · Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) · Melbourne, Australia · Coaching online worldwide

Common questions

Do executive coaches need to be qualified in Australia?

No. Coaching is not a regulated profession in Australia, and anyone can use the title. Credentials from bodies like the International Coaching Federation are voluntary, which is exactly why they're worth checking. Look for a credential, a named training programme, and ongoing supervision.

What does the ICF credential actually tell me?

The International Coaching Federation issues three levels, ACC, PCC and MCC, with requirements that step up in accredited training hours, logged client hours and assessment. It tells you someone completed a recognised programme, has been assessed against a standard, and maintains the credential with continuing education. It doesn't tell you whether they'll be right for you.

How many coaches should I speak to before deciding?

Two or three is usually enough to calibrate. Most coaches offer a free introductory call, and speaking to more than one makes the differences visible in a way that reading websites doesn't. Be wary of any coach who discourages you from talking to others.

My company is paying. Who does the coach actually work for?

You do, and the sponsor has legitimate interests too. A coach should set this out explicitly at the start through three-way contracting, where goals may be shared with the sponsor and session content stays confidential. If a coach can't describe that boundary clearly, that's a real problem.

Should I choose a coach with experience in my industry?

It matters less than most people expect. Industry familiarity helps a coach follow your context without a long explanation, and it can also produce a coach who advises instead of coaches. What matters more is whether they understand the pressure of senior roles and whether their method reaches the thing you're actually stuck on.