We offer four WABC Accredited levels for maximum impact. WABC Accredited signifies that your offering is among the world’s most elite and rigorous business coaching training programs. For those seeking training that readies them for real-world business challenges, no other program distinction compares.
WABC knows that business coaching training must meet the rapidly changing demands facing businesses and organizations of all kinds around the world. To meet this need, WABC offers program accreditation at four levels.
The four WABC Accredited levels cover the full breadth and depth of development and professional offering in business coaching—practitioner, advanced, master and elite.
To earn any of the four levels, programs must be delivered at a professional level of engagement and must meet our professional standards and rigorous assessment process.
WABC Accredited is only available to training programs that offer business coaching as the main focus of their curriculum. This means over 75% of the learning hours within the program must be focused on the practice, theory and/or research of business coaching.
We accept applications from trainers who offer either:
Even if your program is brand new, or requires significant changes to meet WABC’s standards, you may still be eligible to register in our WABC program accreditation process.
Every applicant program must:
Level 1 programs develop practitioner business coaches. Such programs focus on the practical elements of business coaching for participants with limited previous experience in formal focused coaching skills training, or with some experience that they wish to consolidate fully with best practice.
Level 2 programs develop advanced business coaches. Such programs focus on consolidating technical skills and also encouraging the development of a sound theoretical underpinning to enable their participants to provide a full professional scope of practice and to work to more diverse agendas.
Level 3 programs develop master business coaches who may also choose to specialize. Such programs fully explore, and provide critical engagement with, current approaches, methodologies and theories underpinning the work of business coaches to enable their participants to work to an open agenda that may have a more indirect impact on business outcomes.
Level 4 programs develop elite business coaches who represent the highest level of professional practice. Such programs provide an in-depth process that facilitates an intensive examination based on advanced robust methodologies to enable their participants to demonstrate their senior expertise in operating at this level.
Prepare business coaches, leaders or other professionals to solve practical, real-world business challenges and drive new opportunities with the WABC Accredited® global mark, a program accreditation distinction that ensures you’re offering the most comprehensive and robust business coaching training available in the world.
The global business landscape is evolving at an accelerating pace. The demand for confident, competent leadership and ethical, sustainable business models has never been more pressing and necessary for success.
As a discipline that challenges leaders, teams and individuals to think more critically about clarifying and activating their strategy, business coaching is essential to sustaining organizational achievement.
As a powerful intervention, business coaching is a discipline harnessed by tens of thousands of organizations and businesses worldwide, including many Fortune 500 leaders.
It’s no wonder that such a wide array of business coach training programs are available worldwide, whether through internal corporate solutions, or through open programs offered by universities and training institutions. With such strong market growth, there’s a clear demand and abundance of choice.
Yet the global community of business coaching stakeholders—coaches themselves, their trainers, those thinking about becoming a business coach or the organizations interested in applying their skills—must discern the quality of the training they seek and they put into practice every day.
As an unregulated industry, the challenge is a lack of clarity and consistency on what defines excellence in business coaching. WABC has met this challenge through rigorous self-regulatory initiatives focused on raising the quality, credibility and profile of business coaching worldwide.
As the leader since 1997, WABC leads the business coaching industry in identifying the qualities, actions and skills of the effective business coach.
Our insights have allowed us to deeply understand the link between the quality of an individual business coach’s training and the quality of business coaching services they can deliver.
The WABC Accredited global mark was developed in direct response to this crucial need for clarity, reliable standards and quality service delivery within the industry.
As a program accreditation distinction, WABC Accredited:
WABC Accredited programs equip individuals with the evidence-based competencies that leaders, organizations, individuals and teams need to realize their potential, backed by the latest theoretical and practical knowledge designed to deliver results.
For training programs dedicated to offering the best training and education in business coaching, the route to achieve the WABC Accredited mark is through our WABC program accreditation process.
Our process optimizes your program for success by ensuring your training is grounded in the business coaching best practices shaping the industry today.
Whether you represent an open enrollment program offered by a training provider, university or educational institution, or you represent an internal business coaching training program offered by a corporation, business or other type of organization, the depth and breadth of our program accreditation process ensures your program is built on research-informed best practice.
You’ll learn much more about our program accreditation process when you explore all our WABC Accredited levels.
WABC’s rigorous program accreditation process engages successful providers in a continuous lifecycle—from initial accreditation to annual monitoring to re-accreditation every five years to ensure they deliver the highest, most relevant training to business coaches today and tomorrow.
The WABC Accredited mark means:
WABC Accredited is a testament to the excellence of your program and sets you apart from other training providers. Participants know that WABC prepares them for the practical challenges of business coaching in organizational and business-specific settings.
Because it is based on best practice for both business coaching and program accreditation processes, WABC Accredited broadcasts your program meets the highest global standards and is specifically tailored to business coaching, not coaching in general.
Whether your training is available to the open market or to employees within your organization, effective business coaching training can transform how people perform their role, no matter their career stage or level of seniority.
With four levels of accreditation to suit your needs, you’ll be able to build a relevant program that brings out the best in your participants.
WABC Accredited applications are evaluated by fully qualified, independent assessors. They assess the competencies your program addresses and the quality systems it adheres to, ensuring your training meets WABC’s robust criteria.
Our transparent program accreditation process also offers providers access to fully qualified, independent advisers who provide personalized advisory support and feedback designed to make you think more critically, creatively and strategically about your program offer.
Earning WABC Accredited for your program means your graduates are eligible to receive their own individual WABC credential, a distinction available to graduates of WABC Accredited programs.
WABC credentials signal that your graduates are equipped with the evidence-based knowledge and skills to solve real-world organizational challenges and deliver excellence in business coaching.
Carrying the WABC Accredited distinction means you get to build your program’s brand with the support of a global organization committed to excellence.
You will gain the right to leverage the WABC Accredited brand in your marketing, program and training materials.
You will also have access to exclusive opportunities with WABC to build your thought leadership profile, promote your services and access a global community of business coaches and clients.
The WABC program accreditation process includes demonstrating the success of your program’s standards, approaches and learning models.
By sharing this information with WABC, you build the global body of knowledge about business coaching as an evolving, innovative practice.
Your program accreditation shapes business coaching practice, development and self-regulation around the world, to create even greater efficacy and impacts.
The program accreditation process leading to the WABC Accredited mark enables you to learn an enormous amount about effective business coaching, as your curriculum is measured against WABC’s expansive, detailed knowledge base.
Fine-tune your program for success with helpful, personalized feedback during the accreditation process, so you can offer best-in-class training built on research informed standards and best practice in business coaching and training alike.
Earning WABC Accredited for your program also means your program participants and graduates can also enjoy being part of WABC’s membership community, where they can expand their thinking with access to cutting edge knowledge and build their professional network with like-minded colleagues across the globe.
Prepare business coaches, leaders or other professionals to solve practical, real world business challenges and drive new opportunities with the WABC Accredited® global mark, a program accreditation distinction that ensures you’re offering the most comprehensive and robust business coaching training available in the world.
Whether you are a business coach trainer, a coaching organization, or an institution solidifying your existing offering, building a new program or looking to offer your participants a premium business coaching training experience, WABC Accredited distinguishes you apart from the competition.
Having your program WABC Accredited® means that your graduates are eligible to receive their own individual credential from WABC. This is an exceptional professional development opportunity that will help raise your value as a trainer.
Gain credibility that demonstrates your training is rooted in research-informed best practice. Align your program with a globally recognized distinction, and equip yourself with the confidence of knowledge and expertise from an established association, backed by research.
Align with the global standard for standards, skills and competencies that ensures continued business coaching success. Build your reputation with a specialized program accreditation, designed for business coaches, leaders, managers, directors and teams practicing in business and organizational applications.
Signify that your program is rooted in evidence-informed best practice and robust research, and incorporate thinking from adjacent disciplines, such as neuroscience and psychology, to complement your programs.
Offering a WABC Accredited internal training program builds an engine of business coaches, leaders and other employees that are dedicated to the continued success of your people, your strategies and your performance as an organization.
By supporting your leaders, managers, directors and teams with the knowledge and skills to better identify opportunities, unblock challenges, and work together towards shared objectives and priorities, there’s no limit to how far your organization can go.
Having your program WABC Accredited means that your leaders and employees are able to access high-quality training from you and receive their own individual credential from WABC. Taken together, this is an exceptional professional development opportunity that will help raise your value as an employer.
Clarify your leadership purpose and vision, and engage employees more effectively in achieving your priorities. Establish strategic destinations that strengthen your organization’s alignment and integrate diverse stakeholder and market requirements. Build trust and loyalty with teams and clients more quickly by improving your relationship building and persuasive skills.
Guide your team with clarity and communicate strategic intent to create clearer project asks. Build more trusted relationships with colleagues and reports alike, built on sound advice and authentic leadership. Develop strategic roadmaps and benchmarks that address challenges realistically, to ensure your team can reach them.
Foster a positive work environment that outlines clear expectations and drives more focused mindsets. Build a culture of support, respect and collaboration that is aligned with your core values, expertise and business objectives. Unify teams with diverse perspectives and attract and retain top performers. Operate with integrity and discretion to drive trust across your organization.
Fully engage team members to drive top performance and innovation. Improve each individual’s level of confidence, emotional intelligence and communication skills to motivate collaboration and accountability. Equip your teams with the empathy skills needed to build relationships with diverse stakeholders across the organization.
Build customer experiences that are distinct and increase loyalty and reputation in the market. Enhance your service by building a culture focused on active listening, effective communication and customer satisfaction.
PeopleDynamics Learning Group specializes in developing leaders and those who support leaders in an organizational context. With over two decades of experience in training and developing coaches, WABC was the obvious accreditation partner for our Business Coaching Advantage Program™.
We committed to creating a program with quality and depth, but compact enough that busy leaders can gain proficiency and their Registered Corporate Coach™ (RCC™) credential in a four- to six-month period. Working with WABC’s high standards helped us become clearer about the program’s intentions, and be very concrete about the mindset and skill-set shifts participants can make by completing our program.
In 2013, we were proud to be the first Canadian company to gain the WABC Accredited (Level 1 – RCC)® credential for our program. Our program achieved another significant milestone through achieving re-accreditation with WABC. We are grateful for the support that we received from WABC throughout both the accreditation and re-accreditation processes.
As a pioneer in business coaching in Asia since 2002, Progress-U has developed professional coaches since 2005. Having two programs accredited by WABC allows us to give new, aspiring coaches to understand what it means to be a business coach through the WABC Accredited (Level 1 – RCC)® program or to go for a more extensive route by directly enrolling in the WABC Accredited (Level 2 – CBC)® program.
Going through the rigorous WABC accreditation processes for our two programs has helped us create one of the most comprehensive and demanding professional business coach training curriculums in Asia today.
We chose to work with WABC because of its focus on business coaching and its more rigorous and sound approach to accreditation compared with other major coach certification bodies. The continuous support of the adviser assigned to us was very helpful in giving us a deeper understanding of WABC’s requirements for each level.
The highest quality of WABC Accredited® programs meant that in 2011, Progress-U launched the Asia Innovative Coaching Institute (AICI) to focus its professional business coach development activities and ensure continued training excellence in various locations, including Hong Kong, Mumbai, Shanghai and Singapore.
Our affiliation with WABC began in 2009 when building a coaching culture at a Fortune 100 company. We partnered with WABC due to the strict adherence to standards for evidence-based competencies, strong academic affiliation, and willingness of leadership to engage with clients. While we chose WABC because of its focus on business coaching, what we also discovered in the program accreditation process was WABC’s passion for coaching and commitment to coaching excellence.
When it was time for our own organization, the Global Institute of Organizational Coaching, to create its own line-up of business coaching programs, we just knew they needed to be accredited by WABC.
As with all programs that WABC accredits, evidence-based competencies are the foundation to program design. Philosophically, the Global IOC believes that we must bridge scholarship to practice and back to scholarship in developing coaches who move beyond models and processes to become thinking partners for clients. WABC guides that bridging through its accreditation process and academic affiliations. With its pulse on global connections and needs, WABC also creates opportunities for development that integrates cultures and communities at an international level.
If your desire is to build a first-class coach training program, WABC is the organization for you.
We needed to shift our company’s culture towards a more collaborative, coaching environment. The primary driver for this shift is a vastly changing workforce. Within five years, our workforce will require a new level of leader engagement and to find even greater efficiencies. These realities made the case to build effective, relational leaders using business coaching.
We wanted to create an in-house business coaching program that would align our leader development with our values, business needs and priorities. By leveraging the deep coaching expertise already on our team, we asked Trish Candler, a WABC credentialed coach, to lead and develop our new program. Her first-hand knowledge of our business priorities informed her recommendation that our program become accredited by WABC, the leading global authority on business coaching.
Through the WABC program accreditation process, what we discovered was a new approach for envisioning business coaching in the company. The WABC Program Accreditation Team provided ongoing encouragement and supportive guidance. Their passion for ensuring we understood all aspects of the accreditation requirements and process and their responsiveness to our questions and feedback inspired diligence and perspective in our content development. WABC’s global evidence-based standards, rooted in the real-world needs of organizations just like ours, provided a broad and deep competencies framework and quality assurance that seamlessly aligned with our needs and priorities.
Achieving the WABC Accredited® mark for our program has brought more value than we could have imagined, and we are already reaping the benefits of our program. We’re experiencing a more focused, disciplined and consistent business coaching approach. Our leaders now enjoy increased opportunities within our company to learn business coaching and gain their Registered Corporate Coach credentials, demonstrating greater capacity to meet client needs and expanding their roles with cross-functional coaching opportunities, minimizing organizational silos. Additionally, our leaders are expanding their thinking with enhanced curiosity, leading to greater innovation, accountability and impact.
Our company is proud to have learned so much from the depth of knowledge and commitment exuded by WABC. With our accreditation, we will continue to support our leaders’ development goals with a flexible yet solid framework that drives our workforce today and into the future.
Weplusnetwork Ltd is an Italian association of executive consultants and coaches, experts in developing leaders, managers and other talented professionals within organizations. We have solid experience in designing and delivering business coach training programs, and many of our faculty trainers hold WABC credentials and memberships.
With companies’ growing interest in reinforcing coaching competencies for managers, HR professionals and entrepreneurs, we designed a short but intensive program for senior professionals and managers interested in gaining a better understanding of how business coaching can improve effectiveness within their organizations.
We have operated as a Business Coaching Training School since 2013, and received the WABC Accredited (Level 1 – RCC)® credential in 2015. WABC recognition has been a distinctive mark for our training offers, and our alumni have enjoyed being part of an international cohort that acknowledges WABC evidence-based competencies and professional standards for business coaching.
Many HR professionals and managers of large, multinational or Italian companies have chosen our school because we could offer a credentialing path with special attention to organizational and business needs for people development paths.
In 2020 we successfully achieved the “re-accreditation” of our Business Coaching Lab program. We also plan to additionally pursue the WABC Accredited (Level 2 – CBC)® distinction in 2021. This choice is not rooted only in market issues, but also in the “professional growth” that WABC can offer to WABC Accredited® programs. The WABC re-accreditation process allowed us to systematize and enrich training content offered to delegates, and to confer with senior WABC Accredited® advisers during the process. WABC proves very helpful to keep our programs up to date, distinctive and reinforced with global best practices.
We can attest to the value WABC provides for both training participants and training providers.
WABC’s clear focus on business coaching is the reason why we decided to choose them as our accreditor for our Shift Corporate Coach Program. Our clients are business leaders, corporate coaches and HR professionals who appreciate the merit and significant credibility that the WABC Accredited® mark brings to our program. Our clients value the extremely high standards WABC sets to ensure that our program is top notch. WABC’s founder, Wendy Johnson, and the WABC Program Accreditation Team have continually supported us as we grow. Their guidance and support have been invaluable and exceeded all expectations.
WABC builds excellence at every level of business coaching. From creating robust evidence-informed standards to ensuring that program providers offer exceptional business coaching training, we continually find new ways to support business coaching achievement. Take the next step to build a better training program.
Are you a champion of business coaching within your organization and want to introduce WABC to your employer to see what’s possible?
Whether your organization has a business coaching program or is interested in building one, WABC accredits in-house programs to ensure that your employees are trained to coach using the latest research-informed best practice and global standards.
With WABC, program providers can expect a program accreditation process unlike any other in the coaching industry.
In fact, the path to earn the WABC Accredited mark is an important professional and business developmental opportunity in its own right. By design, you will move through our process of progressive stages and steps that enable you to showcase your program offering for evaluation.
Many training providers and organizations want to enhance their credibility and build WABC Accredited programs that drive tangible business results, but aren’t sure where to start.
WABC helps providers develop WABC Accredited training programs, and offers a range of consulting and business services to identify opportunities and improve coaching within organizations.
