Why Coaches Avoid Mentor Coaching (And What They’re Missing)
Here’s something I find endlessly interesting about coaches.
We are trained to help people see their blind spots. We are skilled at sitting with discomfort. We build entire practices around the idea that growth requires honest self-examination.
And yet.
When it comes to our own coaching being seen and examined, a lot of us find every reason to avoid it.
The Avoidance Patterns
If you’re a coach who has been putting off mentor coaching, you probably already know the reason. But in case you haven’t named it clearly, here are the most common patterns I see.
“I’ll do it when I’m less busy.” This is the classic. There is never a perfect time. If you wait for a calm season, you’ll wait forever. The coaches who get the most out of mentor coaching start when it’s inconvenient, because that’s when they’re also doing the most coaching and have the most material to work with.
“I haven’t been coaching much lately and I don’t want to be judged.” This is the one that breaks my heart a little. Coaches who step back from coaching for a while, whether it’s burnout, a career pivot, a life change, often feel like they’ve lost the right to call themselves a coach. Mentor coaching feels like an exposure of that gap.
The coaches who resist mentor coaching the most are usually the ones who would benefit from it the most. Not because they’re bad coaches, but because they’re holding themselves to an impossible standard.
“I know what I need to work on. I just need to practice.” Maybe. But knowing what to work on and having someone help you see the nuance of how it shows up in your coaching are two very different things. Self-awareness is not the same as external feedback. Both matter.
“It’s expensive and I’m not sure it’s worth it.” I hear this, and I respect the financial consideration. But here’s what I’d offer. If you’re renewing your ACC, mentor coaching is required. It’s not an elective. And if you’re renewing your PCC, those mentor coaching hours count toward your CCE credits. So you’re not paying for something on top of your renewal. You’re paying for something that counts toward your renewal, and that also happens to be one of the most targeted, personalized forms of professional development you can get.
What Coaches Are Actually Afraid Of
Underneath all the practical reasons, there’s usually something simpler.
Coaches are afraid of being seen.
Not the polished, professional, credentialed version of themselves. The real version. The one who isn’t sure if their coaching is good enough. The one who worries they’ve been doing it wrong. The one who knows they have gaps and doesn’t want anyone to confirm it.
This is human. And it’s also the exact thing we help our clients with every single day.
We help our clients face the things they’re avoiding. And then we avoid the same thing in our own professional development.
If you’re a coach, you already know that growth doesn’t happen inside the comfort zone. Mentor coaching is one of the few spaces where that principle gets applied to your own craft.
What You’re Actually Missing
When coaches avoid mentor coaching, here’s what they miss.
They miss hearing what they’re doing well! This sounds small, but it isn’t. Most coaches have no idea how strong certain parts of their coaching are because nobody has named it for them. Confidence in coaching is not about feeling good. It’s about knowing, specifically, where your skills land.
They miss catching patterns they can’t see alone. Every coach has habits. Questions they default to. Places where they unconsciously take over the session. Moments where they stop being curious and start being helpful. A mentor coach sees those patterns from the outside and names them with precision.
They miss the re-engagement with the craft. This one is the sleeper benefit. Coaches who go through mentor coaching almost always come out reconnected to why they started coaching in the first place. Not because someone inspired them, but because they were challenged in a way that made them better.
Mentor Coaching as Professional Development
Here’s a practical point that often gets overlooked.
Mentor coaching counts as Continuing Coach Education. For ACC renewal, it’s required. For PCC renewal, up to 10 hours of mentor coaching can count toward your 40 CCE credits as Core Competency hours.
Compare that to a webinar or conference session. Both have value. But a webinar gives you general knowledge. Mentor coaching gives you specific, personalized feedback on how you coach. There is no other form of professional development that does that.
There is no webinar, workshop, or conference that will give you what mentor coaching gives you: direct feedback on your actual coaching.
If you’re going to invest time in your professional development anyway, this is the investment with the highest return.
It Doesn’t Have to Be What You’re Imagining
Most of the anxiety coaches feel about mentor coaching is based on an image of what they think it will be. Being graded. Being corrected. Sitting in a room feeling incompetent.
That’s not what good mentor coaching looks like.
Good mentor coaching is a conversation. It’s a partnership. It’s a space where someone with more experience helps you see what you can’t see on your own, and where the feedback is delivered in a way that builds you up, not breaks you down.
If you’ve been avoiding it, consider that the thing you’re avoiding might be the thing that takes your coaching to the next level.
Ready to Stop Avoiding It?
I work with coaches who are nervous, rusty, unsure, or somewhere in between. My approach is individual, personalized, and built around where you actually are, not where you think you should be.
If you’ve been putting this off, let’s just have the conversation. That’s all it needs to be to start.
Also worth reading:
• What Is ICF Mentor Coaching?