DCI Core Competencies

What We Look For in a DCI-Certified Coach

A One-Page Summary of Core Competencies

At the Deep Coaching Institute, we certify coaches who embody both the inner depth and relational presence essential for transformational coaching. Certification is not simply based on technical skill—it reflects a coach’s integration of presence, attunement, and soulful professionalism, held within a framework of sacred integrity and right relationship.

A DCI-Certified Coach consistently demonstrates the ability to:

1. Embody Presence and Engage in Ongoing Inner Work

  • Remain grounded, self-aware, and attuned to the moment.
  • Use the Three Centers of Intelligence to stay aligned inwardly and relationally.
  • Engage in continual inner development, including shadow work, supervision, and reflection.
  • Model embodied integrity—living what they coach.

2. Honor the Relational Field

  • Establish trust and resonance through attuned, compassionate presence.
  • Hold the coaching relationship as a sacred, co-creative partnership.
  • Create a safe space for the full range of human experience—including pain, grief, resistance, and joy—to be met with courage and care.
  • Navigate sessions with openness to emergence and improvisation, allowing the process to unfold in real time.

3. Work Skillfully with the Enneagram

  • Facilitate type discovery through spacious, inquiry-based dialogue.
  • Recognize core type patterns, identity structures, and protective dynamics.
  • Name pain points with compassion and support the loosening of identification with egoic personality.
  • Guide clients in integrating along their core type’s growth lines, orienting toward Essence and wholeness.

4. Coach from Wholeness and Depth

  • Trust the client’s innate wisdom, resourcefulness, and unfolding.
  • Listen deeply for subtle somatic, emotional, and energetic cues as gateways to insight.
  • Ask powerful questions that evoke awareness, bypass surface content, and open new possibilities.
  • Support embodied integration before action—allowing clarity to arise before moving into goals or solutions.
  • Celebrate small steps, deep shifts, and soul-level transformation with reverence and authenticity.

5. Embody Sacred Integrity and Ethical Presence

  • Align words, actions, and presence with inner truth, reverence, and right relationship.
  • Honor the sanctity of the coaching space and the client’s vulnerability with humility and discernment.
  • Hold power with tenderness and trustworthiness, grounded in ethical maturity.
  • Uphold confidentiality, professional standards, and reverence for the client’s path.

DCI Core Competencies – With Demonstrable Descriptions

1. Embodies Presence and Practices Self-Attunement

Demonstrates this by sensing inwardly during sessions, returning to grounded awareness, and coaching from one’s deeper intelligence, grounded in self-honesty and ethical awareness.

2. Engages in Ongoing Self-Awareness and Development

Demonstrates this by recognizing one’s own patterns, projections, and growth edges in the coaching relationship, using supervision and self-reflection to grow.

3. Uses the Three Centers of Intelligence for Self and Client Alignment

Demonstrates this by attuning to and embodying the Three Centers (head, heart, body) and guiding clients to develop cognitive, emotional, and somatic awareness for deeper alignment within themselves and the relational field.

4. Creates Emotional Safety and Resonance through Attuned Presence

Demonstrates this by sensing the relational field, listening deeply, and meeting the client with grounded empathy—that is, compassion rooted in presence and centeredness rather than emotional enmeshment.

5. Engages the Coaching Relationship as a Sacred Partnership

Demonstrates this by respecting the co-creative nature of the coaching process, trusting the client’s unfolding, and allowing mutual emergence. Demonstrates comfort with ambiguity and creative unfolding; co-creates a session rhythm that adapts to what is alive in the moment.

6. Holds Space for the Full Range of Human Experience

Demonstrates this by courageously welcoming the client’s full emotional landscape—including pain, grief, resistance, and reactive tendencies—as valid and essential aspects of coaching process and eventual transformation. The coach meets these experiences with grounded presence and compassion without fear, fixing, or bypass—honoring them as gateways to deeper integration and healing. Joy and breakthroughs are received with equal reverence, recognizing that all expressions of the human journey are part of the path to wholeness.

7. Uses Language as a Relational and Transformational Tool

Demonstrates this by skillfully tracking client language revealing underlying beliefs, and helping reframe narratives for insight and growth.

8. Facilitates Typing through Spacious, Inquiry-Based Dialogue

Demonstrates this by guiding clients to discover their Enneagram type through open-ended inquiry, self-reflection, and resonance with emotional, somatic, and energetic cues—rather than fixed assumptions or labeling. The coach creates spaciousness for the client’s inner recognition to emerge organically.

9. Recognizes Type-Based Patterns and Identity Dynamics

Demonstrates this by identifying how the client’s Enneagram structure informs core beliefs, perceptions, reactions, and defense mechanisms.

10. Names the Pain and Protective Patterns with Compassion

Demonstrates this by compassionately holding space for type-specific wounds and challenges without reactivity or fixing.

11. Guides Clients Toward Disidentification with Type Structure and Recognition of Essence Qualities

Demonstrates this by loosening attachment to identification with the idealized self and affirming qualities of Essence and soul-aligned capacities.

12. Supports Movement Along the Type’s Growth Path

Demonstrates this by recognizing and integrating the types along the client’s lines and offering practices to support balance and resilience.

13. Trusts the Client’s Wholeness and Inner Wisdom

Demonstrates this by holding a non-fixing stance and facilitating discovery in lieu of providing solutions while honoring the client’s autonomy, dignity, and self-determined process.

14. Listens For and Skillfully Observes Somatic, Emotional, and Energetic Cues

Demonstrates this by tracking shifts in body, breath, tone, and field as sources of guidance.

15. Asks Questions that Cultivate Awareness and Invite Insight

Demonstrates this by bypassing surface content to access deeper patterns and truths.

16. Works with the Client’s Underdeveloped Center for Integration

Demonstrates this by noticing imbalances across the Centers of Intelligence and gently guiding development of the least accessed center.

17. Supports Embodied Awareness before Action

Demonstrates this by pausing in the moment, helping the client anchor new insights somatically before taking steps or setting goals. Demonstrates the discipline needed to wait, sense, and attune before shifting into action or solution mode—prioritizing inner clarity before external steps.

18. Celebrates Small Steps, Inner Shifts, and Reduced Defensiveness

Demonstrates this by affirming growth that may be subtle or non-linear, validating the depth and courage of the client’s progress.

19. Commits to Ongoing Inner Work and Supervision

Demonstrates this by engaging in long-term self-reflection, supervision, and shadow integration as essential practices for transformation and ethical maturity.

20. Co-Creates from Emergence and Improvisation

Demonstrates this by allowing the session to unfold intuitively, facilitating the client’s lead, and making real-time adjustments in alignment with what is arising.

21. Discerns Right Timing for Action

Demonstrates this by sensing when deeper awareness is needed before moving into planning or problem-solving; resists the urge to fix prematurely, holds space for the client’s emerging clarity, and honors the ethical responsibility to prioritize the client’s readiness over imposed outcomes.

22. Embodies Sacred Integrity and Ethical Presence

This competency reflects the sacred and ethical ground from which all others emerge. The coach demonstrates this by aligning words, actions, and presence with inner truth, reverence, and right relationship. The coach brings humility, discernment, and care into the coaching space—honoring the sanctity of the work and the client’s unique path of unfolding. Power is held with tenderness, and ethical maturity is expressed as quiet, grounded trustworthiness.

APPENDIX

Alignment with the Global Code of Ethics

At the Deep Coaching Institute, our commitment to ethical presence and sacred integrity is foundational to the way we train, certify, and practice coaching. We uphold the principles outlined in the Global Code of Ethics for Coaches, Mentors, and Supervisors, which provides a shared framework for professional conduct, confidentiality, and the well-being of those we serve.

This code informs not only our standards of ethical practice, but also our deeper orientation toward reverence for the coaching relationship, humility in holding power, and responsibility in stewarding the client’s vulnerability and growth. As such, DCI-certified coaches are expected to align with these ethical guidelines as a living expression of our core values.

The Global Code of Ethics for Coaches, Mentors, and Supervisors underscores the importance of ethical standards, professionalism, and client welfare. Practitioners must maintain integrity, act responsibly, and commit to ongoing supervision and professional development to uphold the profession’s credibility, trust, and impact.