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On 18th November 2022 ICF Ireland held their annual Awards. The categories for the awards were:

• Coach of the Year 2022
• Rising Star of the Year 2022
• Coaching Circle of the Year 2022
• Organisation Culture Award 2022
• President’s Award 2022

The nominees for each award were amazing and there was such a high caliber this year. Well done to everyone who was nominated.

The Winners:

Coach of the Year 2022: Heather Blackmore

Rising Star of the Year 2022: Margaret Quane

Coaching Circle of the Year 2022: South West Coaching Circle

Organisation Culture Award 2022: Tusla Child and Family Agency

President’s Award 2022: Paula King

Well done and kudos to all of our winners, it was thoroughly deserved.

Hello, and a Very Happy New Year to all our Members and followers. 

Knowing the coaching ethos I can imagine you may have woken up this morning, January 1st 2023, with a sense of gratitude for the year and what it brought to you.   

2022 seemed to go past in a blur for many of us as we tried to catch up on those lost moments of the pandemic, seeing family, children, grandchildren, meeting clients face to face when possible and opening our hearts and minds to those of our ICF family, and their families, caught in war, confusion, grieving and loss. There has been that niggling question of the economic crisis and its impact on Ireland and what we coaches can expect as our clients face all the demands on their time, and how we can support them to remain committed to their intentions for coaching. 

I am thrilled to announce our new Board of Directors. 

I spoke some time ago about New Years Resolutions and asked Members to step up to a role in the 2023 ICF Ireland Board. And WOW, we were overwhelmed at your response, for which I am enormously grateful. Thanks to your response, we now have a new ICF Board to take us into our 20th anniversary year. 

Barbara Edwards, Roel Wuite and myself Eileen Jameson – President 2023 are absolutely delighted to welcome the new Board Members.

Stephen Clements has accepted the role of  Director, ICF Relations. Stephen won the Coach of the Year Award in 2020 and brings his well-known capacity as a coach, mentor, supervisor and networker extraordinaire to help us in Ireland to tap into all the amazing benefits offered by ICF Global and to keep us all informed about initiatives that can benefit Members.  

Siobhan Bradley becomes our Director, External Relations. Siobhan is an executive leadership, life and conflict coach with great experience in Foreign Affairs, Tourism, education and business sectors across Ireland. Siobhan will be advocating at the highest levels for the integration of coaching and a coaching approach to reinforce the development of the coaching industry in Ireland. 

Clodagh Swanson joins us as Director, Member Relations. Clodagh is no stranger to the ICF Ireland Family and was President of the Board in 2015. Clodagh is passionate about the coaching profession, relationship management and continuous learning and development. Clodagh will be listening to our Members’ needs and making sure that their opinion is heard when it comes to learning and social events for Members.

Annette Tully steps into the role of Director, Marketing and will support the development and sustainability of the ICF Ireland Chapter and the ICF Brand in Ireland. She will be supporting training schools in their journey to become ICF accredited, and work with coaches who have yet to benefit from all the values of becoming an ICF Member. Annette brings fantastic experience in marketing and development of a coaching culture and will be instrumental in supporting the Chapter to promote the benefits of Coaching to benefit society.

Marianna Rolikova embodies the energy and dynamism needed in the role of Director of Social Media. She brings a portfolio of international and global experience of running massive social media campaigns for political and social agenda. Watch out for ICF Ireland increasing its social media footprint!

With so many highly capable and experienced candidates it was a considerable challenge for the panel to nominate the Directors mentioned. Many of the other candidates have expressed their passion for coaching and willingness to support coaching in Ireland, by accepting to become an Associate to the Board. Once the planning for 2023 is underway, the Directors will reach out to these members to find areas of mutual interest and benefit for all.  

Associates are of key importance to the continuity and sustainability of the Chapter as well as providing extra resources in specific areas to harvest our greatest potential for success across our four strategic goals. 

And so with all these wonderful appointments, the Board would love to kick off 2023, our 20th anniversary year, with a celebration of the ICF Family. We invite you to please come and meet the Board, and your fellow ICF family coaches, at our first social event of 2023, on Friday January 13th from 1800 – 2030. Please see the event notice on our web site.

May 2023 be an excellent year for you personally and another step towards an Ireland that thrives through coaching.

My very warmest wishes, 

Eileen Jameson,ICF Ireland President 2023.

This article is very relevant to all ICF Coaches who are interested in one-to-one development with a Mentor Coach or Coach Supervisor. The differences between Mentor Coach and Coach Supervisor have been clarified by the ICF in the last couple of years, following a rich debate in the coaching world. As a practising coach, you may be wondering ‘what is the difference’ and ‘who can best support my development?’ The answer to this question very much depends on your experience as a coach and what your ultimate goal is within your coaching practice.

Mentor Coaching

In brief, a Mentor Coach is defined by the ICF as someone who will provide (a) coaching for the development of one’s coaching (b) coaching for personal development and (c) coaching for business development. A Mentor Coach is essential for you to engage with in order to progress your ICF Credentialling Journey.

For example, I engaged a Mentor Coach when I wanted to achieve my goal of becoming a PCC with the ICF. Mentor Coaches typically focus on specific competencies that you need to develop as a coach to attain a certain level of competence. Mentor Coaches are long established within the ICF Credential Framework. Coaching Supervision is a growing trend internationally and this led to the need for the ICF to clarify the distinctions.

Coaching Supervision

ICF defines Coaching Supervision as follows: “Coaching supervision is the interaction that occurs when a coach periodically brings his or her coaching work experiences to a coaching supervisor in order to engage in reflective dialogue and collaborative learning for the development and benefit of the coach and his or her clients.” Coaching supervision offers the more experienced coach a richer and broader opportunity for support and development.

In coaching supervision, there is a lot more focus on “who you are and how you are being with your clients in the broadest sense”. It provides a wide-angled lens to review your coaching practice with a fellow practitioner. I personally trained as a Coaching Supervisor with the Coaching Supervision Academy in the UK in 2014. Their ethos is as follows: “Who you are, is how you supervise/coach/lead.” Unexpectedly, this programme had a powerful impact on me as a coach as well as training me as a Coaching Supervisor.

Investing In Yourself

I was giving advice to an individual recently who has decided to train as a business coach. My advice was this: Once you start on the coaching journey, your own learning and development will be central to your ongoing success. At different points, we all need Mentor Coaches or Coaching Supervisors and you need to choose what is right for you at a particular point in time.  Either way, I believe that this investment in yourself as a Coach is invaluable.

ICF Global’s position on coaching supervision

If you’d like to also read ICF Global’s position on coaching supervision, please check out the following link:

Amanda Cahir-O’Donnell, PCC
Accredited CSA Global Coaching Supervisor

In our practice as coaches, we are very familiar with the need to be present for our clients and we see this competency as being fundamental to the art and effectiveness of coaching. The quality of one’s presence is, in fact, one of the principles distinguishing characteristics between the ICF credential levels, particularly PCC to MCC.

We are typically skilled at being present for clients in one to one settings and a growth area is often developing the capability to be present for self, in this context, as a potentially useful area of insight in the process. We use parallel process as one way of understanding and exploring this dynamic, i.e. how what’s going on in the system and with our clients is paralleled in their work with us and in us as coaches. In the normal course of our work, we deal with this without too much struggle and regular supervision or other reflective practice keeps us clean, sane and improving professionally.

However, from personal experience, when we are involved in deeply transformative work with client teams and systems, this mirroring ramps up to new levels and the challenge is great indeed. Our ability to embrace this challenge, to deal effectively with the extreme personal struggle and emotions and to stay truly present with our clients, as they equally struggle, is the fundamental difference between success and failure, between everything coming apart at the seams and continuing to progress together on the journey.

When we are about to enter the bottom of the U in ‘Theory U’ with client teams, the ‘you know what’ begins to hit the fan. This is the time of letting go – when elements of the system, individual and collective, which have formed the basis of identity and survival up to this point, need to be shed or changed. It’s a time when what is to emerge and replace them is not yet known and so the unconscious response is typically fraught. Fear, anxiety, anger, confusion, stress, pressure, resistance and blame are all in full flow and the client’s reaction to this can be to get rid of the ‘most obvious cause’ of their pain – the team coach!

You will experience your own version of all of these feelings; your defensive system will be fully activated in parallel to theirs. You will also want to react in a way that blames and judges them and so the inevitable outcome of a breakdown of the process is set up.

So the challenge is also the opportunity – you are called in these circumstances to engage deeply and authentically in your own personal transformation and development, to role model it for your clients, so you can be fully present with them as they use your example as permission to engage fully in their own.

In the transformative work of systemic team coaching this is a fundamental key to success.

Be warned, however: this work is not for the faint-hearted!!

Gerry Ryan, MCC