ICF Mentor Coaching
ICF Mentor Coaching (for coaches)
I offer comprehensive mentor coaching for individuals pursuing ACC, PCC, or MCC certification with the International Coach Federation (ICF). With extensive experience as a coach trainer and ICF assessor, I am committed to guiding you through the certification process with compassion, confidence and skill.
“The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.” - Steven Spielberg
My Mentor Coaching Philosophy
Strength-Based Focus: I emphasize your unique strengths, helping you leverage them to enhance your coaching effectiveness.
Compassionate and Direct Feedback: I provide feedback that is both compassionate and direct, ensuring a non-judgmental space where you can grow and thrive.
Supportive Learning Environment: I create a learning laboratory that encourages experimentation, insight, and self-discovery, fostering your development as a coach.
Authentic and Creative Coaching: I help you develop and express your unique coaching style while aligning with ICF core competencies.
Objective Evaluation Preparation: Using my experience, I provide objective feedback tailored to help you successfully pass the ICF Performance Evaluation at the ACC, PCC, and MCC levels.
Join the ranks of hundreds of coaches who have benefited from my mentor coaching. Listen to what some of my past mentees have to say about their experience!
For more specific details on ACC, PCC, and MCC pathways, click here.
ICF Mentor Coaching Package
✓ Get the 10 mentoring hours you need to apply and become a credentialed ICF coach.
✓ Sincere, objective, and evidence-based feedback based on the ICF core coaching competencies from a Master Certified Coach who cares about you and your success.
✓ Supportive feedback in a safe “learning laboratory” with best coaching practices that feel true to who you are.
✓ Greater coaching confidence and a deeper understanding and ability to demonstrate the ICF Core Coaching Competencies.
How I Can Help?
As coaches, we are balancing a lot - running a business, often all by ourselves, finding new clients, balancing our professional and personal lives, and maintaining our hobbies so we can live the lifestyle that we coach our clients to embody.
Frequently Asked Mentor Coaching Questions
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ICF coaches need mentoring because it’s an essential part of their professional growth and development. Here are a few key reasons:
1. Certification Requirements: ICF requires coaches seeking their ACC, PCC, or MCC credentials to complete mentor coaching as part of their certification process. It ensures coaches meet ICF's high standards of professionalism and competency.
2. Skill Refinement: Mentoring helps coaches sharpen their skills by receiving feedback from experienced, credentialed coaches. This is crucial for coaches who want to elevate their practice and move toward ICF certifications like ACC, PCC, or MCC.
3. Ongoing Growth: Just like any profession, coaching is a lifelong learning journey. Mentor coaches help newer coaches grow in their understanding of core competencies, ethics, and best practices, allowing them to continue improving.
4. Objective Feedback: A mentor coach provides an outside perspective, helping coaches identify blind spots and areas where they can refine their techniques or approach. This feedback leads to greater self-awareness and effectiveness as a coach.
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Choosing the right ICF Mentor Coach is a meaningful step in your growth journey. It’s about finding someone who aligns with your goals, challenges you with care, and supports you in developing both skill and confidence. Here are some things to consider as you decide:
1. Credentials and Experience Matter
Look for a mentor who holds a credential equal to or higher than the one you’re pursuing (ACC, PCC, or MCC). Their experience mentoring other coaches and their own coaching hours logged can give you a sense of their depth and capacity to guide you.
2. Alignment with Your Growth Goals
A good mentor helps you integrate the ICF Core Competencies into your coaching practice. Pay attention to their feedback style — does it resonate with how you learn best? Are they experienced in your niche or focus area? The right fit will feel like someone who gets where you’re coming from and where you want to go.
3. Their Approach and Philosophy
You want a mentor who blends encouragement with challenge, offering feedback that stretches you while honoring your unique style. A great mentor coach invites reflective practice, helping you see where you’re growing and where you can deepen.
4. Commitment to Ethics and Professionalism
Look for someone who embodies the ICF Code of Ethics in everything they do. Professional boundaries and confidentiality aren’t just checkboxes — they create the trust you need to learn and grow.
5. Trust and Connection
You should feel comfortable exploring your edges, sharing your uncertainties, and receiving feedback. The right mentor creates a space where you feel seen and supported, even when you’re stepping outside your comfort zone.
6. Practical Fit
Consider the logistics: their availability, the structure of their mentoring (individual sessions, group mentoring, or both), and whether their schedule aligns with your credentialing needs. And while cost is a factor, focus on the value their experience and support bring to your journey. text goes here
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The ICF Mentor Coaching Competencies elevate the coaching profession by offering several key benefits:
Elevating Coaching Standards: The competencies provide a structured framework to develop coaching skills that meet ICF Core Competencies, ensuring coaches are well-prepared for certification.
Supporting Skill Development: With a focus on targeted feedback, mentor coaches help refine coaching styles and proficiency, especially for credentialing or skill enhancement.
Clarifying the Role of Mentor Coaches: The competencies define mentor coaching as a distinct role, emphasizing skill development rather than broader personal or business coaching.
Informing Clients and Stakeholders: A clear set of competencies provides transparency for clients, helping them select mentor coaches who fit their needs.
Guiding Future Research: The competency model is a foundation for further research, informing training programs and certification and credentials in the coaching field.
Promoting Ethics and Reflection: The competencies emphasize ethical standards and reflective practices, ensuring mentor coaches lead by example.
Providing Evaluation Standards: These competencies create a framework for assessing mentor coaches, ensuring they meet professional standards of competence and professionalism.
These competencies are essential in advancing the practice of mentor coaching, fostering high standards, and promoting continuous development in the coaching profession.
(Taken directly from the ICF website: https://coachingfederation.org/credentials-and-standards/core-competencies/mentor-coaching)
To download a copy of the new ICF Mentor Coaching Competencies clieck here.
“Working with Jory Stillman as my mentor coach for four months was an awesome experience. Jory's expertise in the ICF's ACC and PCC markers helped me refine my coaching skills, focus on the client (not their problem), and become more attuned to clients' energy shifts. Her clear communication, direct feedback, and ability to tailor our sessions to my goals were instrumental in my growth as a coach. Jory provided tangible examples of coaching techniques, new ways to ask good questions, and ample opportunities to practice, enhancing my confidence and capability. By the end of our time together, I felt fully prepared to submit my application for the ICF ACC credential. I highly recommend Jory as a mentor coach for anyone looking to take their coaching practice to the next level.”
- Tracy Klein M.P.H, MA, PCC, Wellness, Life & Functional Medicine Coach
Still reading?
If you’ve made it this far and are still reading, something has clearly piqued your interest. If you’re anything like me, you’re already overthinking this - you’ve checked out tons of coaches, gotten dozens of referrals, and signed up for quite a few “free toolkits” flooding your inbox with emails you never open.
If your intuition is saying be in touch, follow it - I would love to connect and see if we are meant to be! Schedule your free 20-minute coffee conversation with me - no commitments, no pressure.
*No coffee needed for these conversations. Have some tea, bring a water bottle - let’s connect.