Lisa M. Baker Earns ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC) Credential: A Rare Distinction Representing the Highest Level of Coaching Mastery

Lisa M. Baker, executive coach, facilitator, and founder of Simplified Coaching (simplified-coaching.com), has officially earned the Master Certified Coach (MCC) credential from the International Coaching Federation (ICF), the highest and most rigorous professional certification in the coaching industry.

Fewer than 4% of ICF-credentialed coaches worldwide achieve the MCC level, which recognizes coaches who demonstrate consistent excellence, advanced partnering skills, and a deep, nuanced presence that supports transformative client results. It’s estimated there are only about 2,000 MCC-level coaches in the world.

Executive Coaching: How It Differs from Teaching, Mentoring, and Consulting

In announcing this milestone, Baker emphasized the importance of understanding what coaching truly is — and what it is not.

“Coaching is different from teaching, training, mentoring, or consulting,” says Baker. “Those disciplines are about transferring knowledge. Coaching is about unlocking the client’s knowledge.”

Unlike training or teaching, which focus on delivering skills; or consulting, which offers expert recommendations; or mentoring, which shares personal experience — coaching is a partnership that helps leaders discover and deploy their own wisdom, direction, and capability. It is a forward-looking, generative process that strengthens a leader’s clarity, decision-making, and presence. Leaders often engage with a coach to help them meet a specific work-related challenge – a new role, a difficult dynamic, or an important opportunity. They may also work with a coach over many years to help guide their own log-term career path.

A Decade of Mastery: Nearly 5,000 Coaching Hours and Hundreds of Hours of Training

Achieving the MCC credential reflects a decade of disciplined learning and intensive practice. For Baker, this journey included:

• Ten years of dedicated professional coaching

• Nearly 5,000 hours of coaching leaders across industries

• Hundreds of hours of advanced training, supervision, study, and continuing education

• Mastery demonstrations judged against the ICF’s highest standards of coaching excellence

“This milestone represents years of commitment — not just to the craft of coaching, but to the leaders I support,” Baker notes. “Every hour has shaped the depth, presence, and partnership that MCC coaches are known for.”

The Impact: Coaching Takes Leaders Further than Instruction Alone

Leadership programs often teach skills — how to communicate, how to influence, how to lead.But skill-building is only one piece of the puzzle. Coaching creates something deeper.

Through the coaching partnership, leaders develop:

• Clarity about their unique leadership philosophy

• Confidence rooted in self-awareness, not performance pressure

• Gravitas and executive presence that comes from alignment, not imitation

• Resilience grounded in perspective, not perfection

• Greater impact through more conscious choices and authentic leadership

“Learning how to lead is important,” Baker says. “Coaching helps leaders understand who they are as leaders — and that’s what creates lasting influence, trust, and results.”

As an MCC coach, Baker partners with executives, senior managers, and mission-driven leaders across Fortune 100 companies, global technology firms, government agencies, higher education institutions, and nonprofits.

About Lisa M. Baker and Simplified Coaching

Lisa Baker is an executive coach, facilitator, speaker consultant, and founder of Simplified Coaching, where she helps leaders live, lead, and achieve with greater clarity, ease, and purpose. Her clients include organizations such as Google, Dell Technologies, Capital One, Salesforce, Intuit, the U.S. Air Force, Accenture, and the U.S. Department of the Navy.

She integrates leadership, mindfulness, digital wellness, and creativity among other things to help clients navigate complexity, build psychological safety, and lead with intention. “I help rising leaders be well and lead well.”