This blog article originally appeared in 2014, and has been updated in 2025.
Clients who hire a coach to support them create their next level of success or to work through a challenge they are facing, often seek a coach who is like them. This means they want someone who has experience in their industry. Or has been a CEO like them, a sales person, a lawyer, or whatever their expertise or position is. Or they may want someone from the same culture, country or work background.
Yet the last person you often want to coach you is someone who is in the same industry as you are. Or has been in the same job that you’re in. Or has a similar life history. Such a coach can often hold the same biases and beliefs as their client, and it can be the ‘blind leading the blind,’ or more like the ‘expert leading the client.’
Granted, shared cultural background or identity can have it’s benefits. Yet even so, the personal experiences of the coach may become a barrier to being fully curious about their client ‘unique’ perspective on their experiences, culture and identity.
While we may seem ‘the same’ as our client, we are not, and never will be. How one person experiences life is not how another person experiences their life. That is one of the beautiful challenges of being human; we are all different in how we think, feel, act, react and respond. Yet we often seem to want to get advice from someone who is like us, yet isn’t us.
Why do coaches want to share their expertise?
The idea of hiring a coach who doesn’t have the same history as the client, often comes as a surprise to prospective clients. That’s because coaches aren’t always clear themselves on what they are offering, and feel their expertise is in their knowledge and experiences.
There have been coaches in sport long before coaching became a professional skill set of coaching competencies. Many consultants and experts have capitalized on the popularization of the concept of “Coach” beyond the sport arena into personal and professional contexts. If you observe a sports coach in action, they are usually dictating what happens with players, and are in the position of power in the game. A sports coach makes decisions based on what they think, see, hear and determine is ‘best’ to do in any moment.
A coach with specific expertise and experiences feels confident their suggestions or experiences ‘add value’ to their client. Yet such a ‘coach’ can easily fall into the trap of being the subject matter expert, and may limit their client to what the coach has experienced. Gravitating to what feels familiar, can be a limiting option for the client. This is more of a consultant or mentor mindset than the mindset of a professionally skilled coach. It’s okay to hire a consultant to give expert advice, or hire a mentor to share how they ‘did it.’ Yet neither of those roles is what a highly skilled coach offers.
What expertise sets a Professional Coach apart?
It’s understandable that people gravitate to those that seem similar to them as familiarity brings a level of comfort. A Professional Coach needs to be skilled at creating trust, and a judgment-free place for clients to express themselves.
Yet this to be a limiting belief that often means a client misses out on working with the most effective coach available for them, whether that’s a coach similar or very different in background and experience.
Some of the most successful coaching outcomes from clients are where I’ve not had any industry or position experience. For example, I’ve worked with hundreds of engineers and technical experts in industries such as information technology, medical devices, construction, and online search. Yet I’ve never been an engineer or been employed in any of these industries. I can ask questions that an expert in the industry wouldn’t think to ask because it might seem ridiculous. Or an ‘expert’ coach may be unable to ask questions without having a belief about what is right or wrong in this situation in this industry or position.
What expertise sets a coach apart?
The coach is an expert in the mastery of coaching skills. Yet even more than that, a coach is an expert in the skills of communicating more effectively, of being fully presence, of building relationships, and of helping the client to grow their self-understanding. It’s the coach’s responsibility to their clients to continually be upgrading their coaching skills, and more importantly, that they are developing themselves (their Coaching Presence). Because it’s the coach’s ‘way of being’ that determines how they listen to their clients, and what they make important or what they discount.
In our Mentor Coaching Program, we help our coaches to strengthen their coaching presence, and their coaching skills, using the ICF core competencies as the learning guide.
Here are some key coaching skills a coach holds expertise in;
- Knowing what a coaching process is so the coach structures a coaching engagement and coaching sessions for the optimum benefit of the client
- Visioning – clarifying the gap from where the client is now to where they want to be
- Listening broadly and deeply to their ‘What’ (situation), and ‘Who’ (inner world of expansive and limiting beliefs, their strengths and values, and successful strategies they’ve used in the past)
- Observing emotions present and how they empower or hinder the client
- Observing shifts in energy, pace, tone and body language (if present in-person)
- Reflecting back anything from points 3, 4 and 5 to the client through observation
- Inquiring using questions that allow the client to discover what they know and don’t know
- Creating opportunities for the client to see themselves and their circumstances from different perspectives, then create actions and support structures that move them closer to their goal or vision.
A coach who is an expert in coaching skills can work very effectively with anyone, as long as the coach and client have rapport and feel that a trusting, confidential relationship is possible to build. Find the best coach for you, not one you feel comfortable with based on industry or position experience. Be open to all options before choosing a coach.
Questions to ask prospective coaches
Here are some questions a client interviewing prospective coaches might want to ask:
- Where did you get your coach training (if they say ‘in the real world’ they are not trained in coaching skills. If they haven’t completed at least 60 hours of coach training, they are not likely to know what coaching skills are versus other skills they may have)
- What coaching credential do you hold? (MCC, PCC or ACC are ICF credentials – from most to least experienced)
- Have you ever had your own coach for at least consecutive 6 months? (if they say no, then they’re not walking the talk, nor know the true power of being coached)
- What are you doing to upgrade your coaching skills and presence?
- What was your most successful coaching engagement, and why?
- What was your least successful coaching engagement, and why?
Registration for our last 3 month Mentor Coaching Group of 2014 is now open.
Commencing September 9 from noon-1.30pm Eastern/NY time. Registration is limited to 7 people on a first come, first served basis.
Carly Anderson and Karen Boskemper offer an awesome mentor coaching group and individual program that has many exclusive offerings for our participants.
One of those offerings is an extensive library of MCC, PCC and ACC coaching sessions for our participants to listen to, evaluate, debrief, and learn from, along with The Target Approach to demystifying the ICF core competencies. These are incredibly valuable learning tools, and will accelerate your understanding of competency distinctions.
Here’s where you’ll find more about The Mentor Coaching Group
Carly and Karen also offer other mentoring options which you can find in the Store