Chapter 1
The Profession of Coaching
Its Emergence and Intersection with Ethics and Law
Introduction
Although coaching is the latest and hottest trend to invade the workplace and the landscape of personal development, it is not really new. Coaching is a derivative of the best thinking in self-improvement since the turn of the twentieth century. The coaching profession found its place in history—and most recently in the business world—when it exploded into the corporate environment in the 1990s. Today, workplace coaching has dozens of specialty fields for every kind of business concern. Among coaching specialties are personal career coaching, transitions and mergers coaching, start-up venture and entrepreneurial coaching, executive leader coaching, team coaching, and what many call life coaching.
We believe that life coaching is the crucible that contains all coaching, since all coaching is best when it is a whole person approach. You might think of life coaching as the operating system much like Windows XP is for a personal computer. It is always there in the background running all other systems. So whether you are an executive coach, a business coach, a leadership coach, relationship coach, parent coach, teen coach, or any other specialist, if you are coaching a living, breathing human being, you are using life coaching.
In addition, coaching exists for every type and size of business, from one-on-one services for the self-employed sole proprietor to large-scale ...