Look for an ICF-credentialed coach at the PCC or MCC level, which requires a minimum of 500 or 2,500 coaching hours respectively. Ask about their assessment tools, their experience with leaders at your level, and their approach to confidentiality. The single most important factor is chemistry — you need to trust this person enough to be honest with them. A bad coach is worse than no coach, because they waste time and create false confidence.

The executive coaching industry has a quality problem. There is no universal licensing requirement. Anyone with a website and a LinkedIn profile can call themselves an executive coach. The ICF estimates there are over 100,000 coaches worldwide, and the majority do not hold any recognized credential. This means the burden of quality control falls entirely on you — the person hiring the coach.

I hold the ICF PCC credential. I am also a PCC Assessor, which means the ICF trusts me to evaluate other coaches' competence. I have seen the full range — brilliant coaches who change lives and incompetent ones who do damage. Here is how to tell the difference.

Credentials That Matter

The International Coaching Federation is the gold standard credentialing body. Their three levels are:

ACC (Associate Certified Coach): Minimum 100 hours of coaching experience and 60+ hours of coach-specific training. This is an entry-level credential. An ACC can be competent, but they are early in their development.

PCC (Professional Certified Coach): Minimum 500 hours of coaching experience and 125+ hours of training. This is where serious coaching begins. A PCC has enough hours to have developed genuine pattern recognition and has passed a rigorous performance evaluation.

MCC (Master Certified Coach): Minimum 2,500 hours and 200+ hours of training. An MCC is a master practitioner. There are fewer than 5,000 MCCs in the world.

Beyond ICF credentials, look for coaches who hold assessment certifications. I use the Leadership Circle Profile, Hogan assessments, and the Intercultural Development Inventory. These validated tools provide objective data that anchors the coaching conversation. A coach who works without assessments is working without a map.

Academic credentials matter too, though perhaps not in the way you expect. A coaching-specific program from a recognized institution (Georgetown, Columbia, NYU, etc.) indicates structured training in coaching methodology, ethics, and supervision. An MBA alone does not make someone a coach.

The ICF PCC credential requires a minimum of 500 hours of documented coaching experience, 125+ hours of coach-specific training, and passing a rigorous performance evaluation. If your prospective coach does not hold at least this level of credential, ask why — and be cautious about the answer. — Dr. Dhru Beeharilal

Red Flags: What to Watch Out For

No recognized credential. This is the biggest red flag. If a coach has no ICF credential (or equivalent from EMCC or ICAgile), you are taking a significant risk. Ask directly: "What is your coaching credential and how many hours of coaching have you logged?" If the answer is vague, walk away.

They promise specific outcomes. A good coach will never guarantee that you will get promoted, double your revenue, or fix your relationship with your board. They can describe the typical outcomes of their engagements. They can share anonymized case examples. But anyone who guarantees results is selling, not coaching.

They talk more than they listen in the discovery call. Pay attention to the first conversation. If the coach spends most of it telling you about their methodology, their background, and their famous clients, that is a red flag. A good coach is curious about you. They ask questions. They listen. The discovery call should give you a taste of what coaching actually feels like — and coaching feels like being deeply heard.

They do not discuss confidentiality boundaries clearly. Executive coaching often involves three parties: the coach, the leader, and the organization paying for it. A good coach will clearly articulate what is shared with the organization and what remains confidential. If they are vague about this, you will never feel safe being honest — and coaching without honesty is theater.

They have no experience at your level. Coaching a first-time manager and coaching a C-suite executive are fundamentally different practices. The dynamics, the stakes, the political complexity, and the psychological challenges are not comparable. Ask your prospective coach: "How many executives at my level have you coached?" If the answer is "you would be my first," keep looking.

Questions to Ask in a Discovery Call

Here are the questions I would ask if I were hiring a coach for myself:

"What is your coaching credential and how many coaching hours have you logged?" This immediately separates serious coaches from hobbyists. You want specific numbers, not vague characterizations.

"What assessment tools do you use and why?" The answer reveals whether they have a structured methodology or are improvising. Validated assessments like the Leadership Circle Profile, Hogan, or 360-degree feedback instruments indicate rigor.

"What does a typical engagement look like? How long, how often, what structure?" A good coach can describe their process clearly. They should be able to outline the phases of an engagement without reading from a script. Typical engagements run 6-12 months with sessions every 2-3 weeks.

"Can you describe a time coaching did not work? What happened?" This is the most revealing question you can ask. Every experienced coach has engagements that did not produce results. A good coach can discuss what happened without deflecting blame. A bad coach claims everything always works.

"How do you handle the relationship with the sponsoring organization?" If your company is paying for the coaching, the coach needs to manage a three-way relationship. Ask how they handle progress reporting, confidentiality boundaries, and situations where the organization's goals and the leader's goals diverge.

Ask your prospective coach: "Can you describe a time coaching did not work?" Every experienced coach has failures. What matters is whether they can discuss them honestly and what they learned. A coach who claims perfect results is a coach you should not hire. — Dr. Dhru Beeharilal

Chemistry: The Factor That Trumps Everything

All the credentials and methodology in the world do not matter if you do not trust the person sitting across from you. The research supports this — the therapeutic alliance (adapted in coaching as the coaching relationship) is consistently the strongest predictor of positive outcomes across all helping professions.

A 2019 study by de Haan, Grant, Burger, and Eriksson published in Consulting Psychology Journal found that the coaching relationship, as perceived by the client, was the strongest predictor of coaching effectiveness — stronger than the coach's technique, the client's motivation, or the organizational context.

Chemistry in coaching means: you feel genuinely heard, you feel safe being honest, and you feel appropriately challenged. Safe does not mean comfortable. A good coach will push you into discomfort. But you should feel that the push comes from care, not ego.

Most good coaches offer a complimentary discovery session for this reason. Use it. Pay attention to how you feel during and after the conversation. Did the coach seem genuinely curious about you? Did they ask questions that made you think? Did you find yourself being more honest than you usually are with someone you just met? Those are signs the chemistry is right.

What Good Coaching Looks Like (From the Inside)

Good coaching feels like being seen. Not judged. Not fixed. Seen. The coach reflects back patterns you did not know you were running. They ask questions that sit with you for days. They hold you accountable without shame. They celebrate your progress without flattery.

Good coaching is uncomfortable, regularly. You will leave sessions feeling stirred up. You will notice things about your behavior that you wish you had not noticed. That discomfort is the signal that the work is working.

Good coaching changes how you think, not just what you do. After a good engagement, you do not need the coach anymore — not because the coach abandoned you, but because you developed the capacity to coach yourself. That is the ultimate measure of coaching quality: it makes itself unnecessary.

Key Takeaways