An interesting comparison …
I got a good question from the wife of a prospective practice owner the other day at one of our franchise Discovery Days at our office in Las Vegas.
She wondered why there weren’t more women Business Coaches in our system.
Coaching, she said, seems to be the perfect type of business for women, who typically are very effective in their communication styles and who can relate to a lot of different people and personalities in a lot of different situations.
Personally, I think being a great coach has a lot more to do with behaviors than it has to do with gender.
Currently, approximately 20% of all coaches in our system are women.
But let’s look at some numbers in a slightly different context …
Today, women make up more than half of America’s labor force … but, as of last year, only 12 Fortune 500 companies and 25 Fortune 1000 companies had women CEOs or presidents.
Those numbers have been fairly consistent over the past ten years or so.
In 1998, some studies indicate that a mere 11.2% of corporate officers in Fortune 500 companies were women, a percentage that peaked at more than 16.4% in 2005.
By 2008, this number fell to 15.7%.
For professional women with business experience, business coaching is a perfect professional services business.
Not only do women effectively relate to a wide range of clients and customers, they can be excellent drivers and implementers.
And in our system, some of our best coaches are in fact, women.
So while some could look at our system and say “only” 20% of our coaches are female, that average is in fact higher than the numbers of women in leadership position in corporate America.
And, unlike those “corporate” positions, the women Business Coaches in our system have the freedom to work towards a fee level they feel is appropriate for their own business and lifestyle, without being “capped” in terms of compensation, achievement or results.
Plus, the accolades they receive and the results they help others create can truly be called their “own.”
While women in business leadership roles still have a ways to go to equal their male counterparts, there are a lot of opportunities out there for women to achieve more in terms of income and recognition than they may have ever thought possible.
I’m proud to say business coaching – and ActionCOACH – is one of them.
Jodie Shaw
Tags: Action coaching, CEO, corporate America, Jodie Shaw, women in leadership
ActionCoaching | Jodie Shaw | 
August 20, 2010 6:20 pm
