If you have anything to contribute please email education@icfgauteng.org

April 2011

The Global Coaching Survey 2008/2009, conducted by Frank Bresser Consulting, examined the current state and development of coaching in the world overall, in each continent, region and country, covering 162 countries.

Having just experienced the energy of the Coaching Caravan leaving its footprint in sub-Saharan Africa, it is interesting to review this research from an African perspective. Click here for the ‘African edition’ version of the report which incorporates more detail on the African responses towards the end of the report.

Below are some notable quotes from the report along with some pointed questions for our consideration. We welcome your responses at education@icfgauteng.org :

“There are about 2,000-2,500 business coaches operating in Africa. South Africa – with about 5% of the African population – has around 1600 business coaches comprising about 70% of the total. Approximately 12% of African coaches (260) are based in Egypt, Kenya and Morocco, so the other 44 African countries have the remaining 18% of business coaches on the continent. Only in Morocco is coaching already widely accepted and used as a business tool. In three other countries (South Africa, Egypt, Libya,) this is undecided.”

What do we, as a passionate community of professional coaches, need to do to enable wider acceptance of coaching as a business tool?

“There is a strong directive dimension to coaching in Africa. In 6 countries a directive coaching approach prevails and a non-directive approach predominates in no single country. In nearly all countries, it is an issue that clients expect to get advice and direction from (potential) coaches.”

What is the implication of this tendency for coaching in Africa?

“The use of coach supervision is widely spread in 4 countries. Remarkably, these have a rather “small” coaching industry (10-60 business coaches). In contrast, in South Africa with about 1600 coaches, supervision is not widely used.”

How could you as a coach benefit from more extensive use of supervision?