As few formalized training programs exist for this specialty, consumers should be cautious of the background, skills, and qualifications of individuals presenting themselves as professional "coaches". In attempts to regulate and offer a higher degree of consumer confidence, several organizations have arisen in attempts to develop professional standards and certification of individuals delivering services termed as "coaching".

The largest such organization is called the International Coaching Federation (www.coachfederation.org). The ICF has provided extensive efforts in attempts to establish standards and regulate services provided under the coaching title.   An additional organization, the Professional Coaching and Mentors Association (www.pcma.org), fulfills a similar role as the ICF, but focuses more specifically on business professionals and organizations. The PCMA's activities encompass both the formal and informal processes through which professional development occurs in an organizational setting. We encourage the reader to visit both these websites to learn more about the coaching process and these organizations.

The organization that has provided specific training for the coaching staff at J. F. Zagotta & Associates, LLC, is the "College of Executive Coaching" (CEC).  The CEC was founded and is headed by Jeffrey Auerbach, Ph.D.  Dr. Auerbach is a trained Clinical Psychologist who had transferred his clinical practice into the coaching/consulting arena, where he has practiced for many years. He has developed a highly effective coaching training model aimed at professionals who hold advanced degrees in a mental/behavioral health area, who seek to transition towards a coaching/consulting based practice. The program, (I feel), is uniquely suited for doctoral level psychologists making this change, and maximizes the strengths they have to bring to this field of endeavor. The majority of the faculty at the CEC are doctoral psychologists who have transitioned into, or have worked throughout their careers in the coaching/consulting field.

The J.F Zagotta & Associates, LLC, coaching/consulting professionals are all experienced doctoral level psychologists, who have worked in a variety of professional settings (including medical and community based institutions, not-for-profits, and business/corporate organizations). All of our direct coaching/consulting staff have completed an initial 36 hours of coaching training through the CEC, and are involved in completing the CEC's Master Coaching Certificate Program. We encourage you to visit the CEC website (www.executivecoachcollege.com) to learn more about this organization, its training programs, and the other professional services offered by the college. Dr. Auerbach has authored a very useful introductory book on understanding the coaching process entitled "Personal and Executive Coaching". The book is geared towards behavioral health professionals seeking to transition or diversify into a coaching based practice, but also offers a wealth of general information related to professional coaching and consultation services. The book can be purchased at the CEC website.

Two additional worth mentioning as leaders in the arena of business/organizational coaching/consulting are The Center for Creative Leadership, and RHR International. The Center for Creative Leadership (www.ccl.org) is extensively involved in research and coaching/training of business leaders and top executives, including many fortune 500 company professionals. The Center has an international reputation for assisting in the development of highly effective managerial professionals, and serving as a world class coaching and research institution. Several of the CEC faculty have direct affiliation with the CCL. We would encourage you to visit the CCL's website, and learn more about this organization, and the many open enrollment leadership training programs they offer. The RHR organization (www.rhrinternational.com), additionally, is a well established and predominantly psychologically focused organizational consulting group.  A wealth of information related to this aspect of professional coaching can also be found at their website.

J.F. Zagotta & Associates, LLC, specifically focuses on career-based coaching and consultation services.  This focus helps maximize our strengths in utilizing scientifically based service models. We feel our expertise can be of specific value to professionals and organizations seeking to adopt a research oriented, and scientifically grounded approach in addressing their career enrichment and organizational performance related questions. Additionally, these areas hold specific meaning to our staff, who during their professional careers, have pursued many of the same transitions, and encountered many similar challenges our clients are facing (be they individuals contemplating a career change, those seeking more fulfilling avenues in their current endeavors, or organizations seeking a competitive edge and increased investment in their most valuable resource--their personnel).

We are a new and very small company, consisting of a core staff of psychologists/entrepreneurs, and a network of experienced fellow professionals. We have entered into this endeavor, related to our passion for assisting others in discovering their true potentials, in promoting more fulfilling careers, and in creating more comfortable, challenging, productive and rewarding workplaces. We do not encompass the scope and size of other career and organizational consultants/trainers we have mentioned. We do, however, endeavor to provide a similar service to our clients, utilizing the research and innovations these organizations have brought to this field. We also believe our fledgling status serves as a notable strength, allowing us to provide highly individualized and novel approaches to addressing our clients’ needs and concerns.

We hope this gives you an overview of the coaching field and of our particular focus within this large arena. We encourage you to explore the entirety of this website, and visit the links to the organizations we reference. These linkages are located below for your convenience. We hope the information contained within this website will help educate our visitors to the scope of our practice; to our goals as an organization; and to other valuable resources within the fields of professional coaching, career enrichment/transition, and organizational development. 

We appreciate your inquiries and feedback.  Thank you for your interest.

The concept that other factors besides IQ play a crucial role in determining an individual's success and satisfaction with career pursuits has been put forward by many, but largely popularized by Daniel Goleman in his Book "Emotional Intelligence" (Published by Bantam Books, 1995), and in the subsequent titles “Working With Emotional Intelligence”, and “Primal Leadership”. Goleman has indicated in subsequent writings that he started the “Emotional Intelligence” project in response to another popular book of the time, "The Bell Curve"--which made the case for IQ being a prominent factor in determining success across many key functioning areas, and suggested that majority groups in the United States had a competitive advantage related to possessing superior IQ scores. In "Emotional Intelligence", and subsequently in his following books "Working with Emotional Intelligence", and "Primal Leadership", Goleman outlined the argument, utilizing extensive research and data, that IQ is actually a very poor predictor of career and other areas of success, and that peak performers in the world of business possess other core emotionally related competencies, including the key areas of Self-Awareness, Empathy, Self-Control, and Social Skills such as influence and team building. Goleman presents overwhelming research that advanced degrees, technical training, and general intellectual abilities are entry level requirements, but that it is actually these emotionally based skills that predict success in today’s career environment, and that these are the factors that predict the truly successful career performers, and accurately define the vast majority of those who rise to the highest levels of organizational leadership. Goleman Opens "Working With Emotional Intelligence" by stating: 

"The rules of work are changing. We're being judged by a yardstick: not just how smart we are, or our expertise, but also how we handle ourselves and each other."

In "Working With Emotional Intelligence”, Goleman, a Harvard educated Psychologist, and experienced scientific journalist, documents that in determining star performance in nearly every field of career endeavor, emotional intelligence competencies matter twice as much as cognitive abilities (such as measured by IQ) and/or technical expertise. These crucial skills can also be learned, unlike many factors measured by IQ.

Peter Salovey (Yale University) and John Mayer (University of New Hampshire) are research Psychologists who have pioneered the theory of emotional intelligence, and have researched the area extensively. Salovey and Mayer have developed several well researched and extensively tested measures to assess practical abilities across emotional intelligence areas. The most recent version, the MSCEIT, is available to qualified purchasers (individuals with advanced training in psychometric testing) through Multi Health Systems (www.mhs.com). Reuven Bar-On, is another Psychologist who has conducted extensive research in this area, and who developed his own self-report measure of emotional intelligence, the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i). Dr. Goleman's own research endeavors have lead to his development of an additional workplace related emotional intelligence measure (Emotional Competence Inventory) that relies upon feedback from the individual participant, their immediate supervisor, those who report directly to this individual, and the individuals colleagues or same level peers. Goleman advocates that this multi-level assessment approach (termed a 360 evaluation-related to a comprehensive and complete, or 360 degree data collection process). All of these measures are use widely utilized in top businesses and organizations in efforts to assess and strengthen the essential core competencies of emotional intelligence. All authors would advise caution as well, as to the process for use of these competency assessments, and the notable care and respect required in delivering feedback to individuals, and in preserving the confidentiality of this data within an organizational setting. All such publishers of these testing materials advocate for the ethical and appropriate usage of these instruments by trained and qualified professionals who abide by the standards set fourth by the American Psychological Association (www.apa.org) in the usage of these instruments and in the presentation of assessment results.

At J. F. Zagotta and Associates, LLC, we model our practice of career and organizational coaching/consulting on the research and practices put forward in Dr. Goleman's groundbreaking compilations of the impact of emotional intelligence in relation to career endeavors. We believe exposure to these publications by Dr. Goleman ("Emotional Intelligence", "Working With Emotional Intelligence", and "Primal Leadership") serve as our most effective means of advertisement and marketing. We seek to help individuals and organizations build emotionally intelligent career and organizational enrichment programs.

We encourage the utilization of reputable professional coaches and consultants in these areas by those seeking to foster the lessons of the emotional intelligence research, and put fourth that the completive edge to be gained from these lessons, as well as the personal satisfaction within ones career endeavors, is too valuable to ignore given today's job- market realities. We further advocate for the unique role that professional psychologists can bring to these endeavors, through their combination of training in interpersonal interaction, research and theoretically based exploration of human behaviors/competencies, as well as expertise in scientifically based assessment procedures, and the measurement of programmatic outcomes. We offer links to other Coaches and Consultants that we believe possess the requisite training, skills, and experience base to be competent and reputable professional resources in assisting individuals and organizations with these types of endeavors.

We believe that our particular strength, as a new and smaller sized career coaching and consulting organization, is our ability to provide highly individualized services and programs to our clients. Our clients deal directly with our doctoral trained coaching/consulting staff, and our programs are designed specifically for our individual and organizational clients.

We periodically offer our introductory seminars, "The Lessons of Daniel Goleman's Working with Emotional Intelligence", and "The lessons of Daniel Goleman's Primal Leadership", at minimal cost, to expose individual professionals and organizations to the compelling analysis offered in these groundbreaking and scientifically based best sellers.  We also offer a variety of other topics as well. Please inquire about our next seminar offering.

Of course, we are also available for individualized consultations addressing the needs professionals and organizations. Please see our full contact information on the "Contact and Links" page of this website. We look forward to your feed back and inquiries.

Psychologists have specialized abilities to bring the strength of psychometric-based interest and preference inventories to the Coaching and Consulting process. As such, J.F. Zagotta & Associates, LLC, emphasizes this area as a particular strength in our client service offerings. We utilize a variety of highly accepted, utilized and researched instruments (including the MBTI and the Strong Interest Inventory) to access the knowledge found in decades of established research across the career enrichment and organizational effectiveness arenas. We also recognize that quality assessment services involve skilled data collection procedures, as well as sensitive, thorough, productive, and confidential feedback of results.

J.F. Zagotta & Associates, LLC, Coaching and Consulting staff are members of the American Psychological Association ( www.APA.org), and as such abide by the APA code of ethics. The APA code of ethical behavior for Psychologists emphasizes specific guidelines related to the appropriate usage of testing data, sensitivity in the delivery of assessment feedback, and confidentiality of client records.  We ensure that our clients have a thorough understanding of their results, through a constructive and supportive process.  In abiding by these standards, we insist that all of our assessment feedback activities are conducted in a face-to-face manner. We also recognize that inventory results never represent the entire picture, and that a "test" is never more accurate than an individual’s knowledge of themselves.  We perform an interactive validation of each profile with our clients to achieve the most valuable information these tools can offer.

The Meyers Briggs Type Indicator is possibly the most widely used psychometric inventory within organizational and career counseling environments.  The MBTI has been utilized for over 5 decades, and has extensive research support and cross-cultural validation studies.  Exploring the strengths, preferences, and interactive styles of the various MBTI types has proven rewarding for thousands within the organizational training and career counseling arenas.  Extensive volumes have been written on the value of type exploration.  The literature is too vast to adequately cover in this forum.  A nice review of the benefits of using type in the career enrichment process is found in Paul D. Treiger's and Barbara Barron-Treiger's book "Do What You Are", 3rd edition (2001).  The book provides a basic understanding of type and its usefulness in a fairly easy to utilize format.  We do advocate, however, that the reader goes on to take the actual inventory, and have the results interpreted by a qualified professional, as a fuller and more fulfilling exploration in this area.  Type assessment through the MBTI is one of our most basic exploration tools, and often the entry point in assisting our clients with their career based goals.

The MBTI is a copy written offering of the Consulting Psychologists Press ( www.cpp.com).  The CPP website contains a wealth of information and offers many products that can help the reader familiarize themselves with the concepts underlying "type", and the MBTI.  The MBTI itself can only be purchased by, and administered through qualified professionals.  As Licensed Psychologists, our Coaching/Consulting staff can offer this assessment, in its many varieties, directly to our clients.  Through our account with CPP, we can even arrange for our clients to take the assessment on-line. 

The Strong Career Interest Inventory is also a well established, extensively researched assessment tool utilized by thousands in the career selection and enrichment process. The Strong Inventory is often used in conjunction with the MBTI, as a powerful tool in assessing career fit, and interest. While the MBTI looks at “type” preferences related to (or “dominant”) interactions styles, information gathering styles, cognitive processes, and structural or organizational styles, the Strong psychometrically compares an individuals interest in various work based activities with those of other individuals who are gainfully employed across specific career endeavors. This combination can hence assess and compare an individual’s personal style preferences, with their preferences across well established career activities, and prove a very valuable individually and organizationally based career building tool.

The Strong is also a copy written offering of the Consulting Psychologists Press (www.cpp.com), and has similar qualified user requirements. Our staff can offer this tool to clients in an on-line format as well, either to be used separately, or in special combination packages with the MBTI.

Current literature is directly indicative of a distinct overlap between leadership success, and possessing the basic emotional intelligence competencies. A more thorough discussion of this topic can be found on the “Emotional Intelligence” page of this website. In today’s career environment, leadership competencies must not only be broad, but effective leaders must be able to call upon various styles and skills, at the “right” times, based upon the specific leadership tasks and challenges they face. We have access to a variety of instruments, from those that assess an individuals' basic emotional intelligence competencies (www.mhs.com); to those that compare an individuals' leadership styles with successful, Fortune 500 business leaders; to those that draw on data in a 360 degree format, utilizing feedback from direct reports, peers, and supervisors (offered through www.cpp.com, and other assessment organizations).

As with all our assessment activities, great care is taken to offer useful, constructive and supportive, strength-based feedback in these areas. Particular care must be taken (and is) with 360 degree assessment results feedback, to ensure this is a successful and productive, and appropriately confidential endeavor.  Please visit our “Emotional Intelligence” page found on this website for additional information on this topic.