What makes a good coach?

Most people think a good coach is defined by hours logged, certifications earned, and models learned.

Yes those those things matter, continuing to learn is important. Those things are also visible and easy to point to. But do they alone make you a better coach?

What I have found is that coaching excellence is not built on experience alone. It is built on what you do with that experience once the session ends.

Two coaches can have the same number of hours. One improves every year. The other repeats the same year ten times.

The difference is in their practice, not talent. And practice, in this sense, is a consistent steady reflective practice.

That is the habit of sitting with a session and asking what really happened, not just what seemed to happen. The willingness to have your assumptions questioned in supervision, even when it is uncomfortable. And staying open enough to keep learning, especially when you already know a lot.

Erik de Haan makes this point clearly in The Pursuit of Excellence. What matters is not how much you know, but how willing you are to examine your own work.

That examination is where experience turns into insight. Without it, hours accumulate. With it, a coach evolves.