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Coaching Professionals

In the words of Guy Le Boterf, a French expert on the development of competencies, "A Professional is a person who possesses a personal body of knowledge and of know-how which is recognized and valued by the market. Because of this market recognition, the Professional benefits from an advantage not available to other workers: he or she can personally manage internal or external^professional mobility, in a specific firm or in the international market. A person who is recognized as a Professional possesses a social standing which is larger than the specific job he or she holds down."

In addition to Ability, Confidence, Responsibility, Belief and Respect other key personal qualities that define a Professional are Honour, Reputation and Trustworthiness. Trustworthiness comes from an assurance of reliability. Reputation is not only a signal to your customers but also a commitment mechanism that keeps you up to the mark. Paul Seabright, a British economist working at the University of Toulouse has written, "Those who can convince others of their intrinsic honesty, may thereby prosper, and it may be easier for the genuinely honest to be thus convincing—the more so if honesty, or at least the true and honorable performance of a certain trade or skill, requires a degree of style, confidence and even grace, built up over a long period of commitment to the task, that are hard for an opportunist to feign."

The success of a Professional Service Firm rests on the ways in which its individual leaders demonstrate their professional foundation of values, attitudes and competencies.