More from Patty: From the beginning of SeattleCoach I’ve aimed for far more than coach training. Believing that professional coaching is a leadership movement, I’ve designed our program to deepen the personal style and presence along with the coaching mindset of each of our coaches. That means that in addition to teaching the essential skills and core competencies of professional coaching, our development of coaches rests on three components.

1. Before I became a coach, I practiced for years as a licensed marriage and family therapist and became increasingly interested in the overlap of my work with the field of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. In our curriculum you will spot elements of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Appreciative Inquiry, Narrative Therapy and Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. And throughout, you will experience my convictions about Systems Theory and its two foundational components.
• Personal Presence: The key element in any coaching relationship is the differentiated coach’s calm personal authority and openness to using and learning more about themselves and their impact. They are contagious in the best of ways. These are the leaders who can address reality curiously, without placing blame.
• The leader’s ability to become graciously and generously connected: The power of any network is proportional to the quality and quantity of connections between the links--beginning with the differentiated leader.

2. The second component is the emerging field of applied neuroscience: Strengths-based/somatic intelligence and process. Simply put, our human brains learn best and change most positively and sustainably when we are in neurologically safe-enough alliances. “Safe-enough” doesn’t mean bubble-wrap. Coachable people are not delicate, insistent, entitled or victimy. “Safe-enough” means that where there is enough predictability, autonomy, trust and mutual respect, brains and relationships do better, especially in collaboration and conflict.
3. And third, we trust the eclectic human filters of the seasoned leaders we attract. We pick learners: people who are curious, brave, inclusive and patient with discomfort. They don’t scare easy. Our participant-coaches bring rich backgrounds in a variety of leadership and management approaches. And they apply their learning in a wide array of settings: With executives and teams, as in-house experts and HR professionals, and as external entrepreneurs who specialize in executive, individual, team, wellness, adventure and personal development coaching. Because coaching often connects with one’s sense of purpose, many of our coaches are informed by their personal faith backgrounds in Jewish, Buddhist and Christian spiritualties.

In addition, two key factors are unique to the SeattleCoach approach to developing coaches and coaching leaders.

First is the highly personalized nature of the training. Though some of our Cohorts have pivoted to virtual platforms, we’ve kept our magic. Unlike most coach-training programs, this one meets over time in small Cohorts of carefully selected participants.

And in addition to our regular Cohort meetings and off-sites, we ask participants to meet for peer-coaching between sessions with members of their Cohorts. Participants learn to coach themselves along the way. And when we’ve concluded, our members continue to grow together as allies in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.