Coaching has become a key ingredient in professional success. The industry has grown tremendously, demonstrating the power and importance of having a coach. In fact, the number of coaches available across the world has been growing steadily for the past two decades. While many professional associations have seen declines in their membership in recent years, the global organization of professional coaches, the International Coaching Federation (ICF) is booming. Magdalena Nowicka Mook, CEO of the ICF, says, “Coaching empowers. And we all needed that to just survive, let alone thrive in the last couple of years. ICF experienced remarkable growth in 2021, reaching over 50,000 members in 156 countries. That indicates that coaching is a global phenomenon that’s being embraced by a growing number of people.”

For the longest time, when you heard the word “coach,” you instantly thought of sports. The inception of executive coaching can actually be traced back to the world of sports, specifically tennis and golf coaching in the UK at Inner Game, whose founder (Sir John Whitmore) realized that his principles could be useful for honing business leadership skills. In the early 1980s, Sir John and his partners launched Performance Coaching, and the rest is history. As other pioneers joined the field, coaching for professionals started gaining real traction in 1995, when the ICF was founded.