ICF Competency Series: Cultivating Wholeness through Ethical PracticePart 2: Embodies a Coaching Mindset (Competency A2)

Coaching isn’t just a set of skills—it’s a way of being. The ICF’s second core competency, Embodies a Coaching Mindset, calls us into a space of openness, humility, and continual growth. At Integer, we see this mindset as the heartbeat of coaching. It’s the internal posture that allows authenticity, connection, and wholeness to take root.

🌀 A Posture of Openness

To coach well, we must learn to meet our clients not with answers, but with presence. This mindset means releasing assumptions and stepping into each session with curiosity and flexibility. It means trusting that the client is the expert on their life—and that our role is to create space for their truth to emerge.

When we embody a coaching mindset, we stay grounded in the belief that our clients are capable, resourceful, and whole. We don’t fix. We don’t direct. We reflect, ask, witness, and hold.

🔍 Growth for Both Client and Coach

Just as we encourage growth in our clients, we must commit to our own. That means engaging in ongoing learning, self-reflection, and mentorship. It means getting honest with ourselves about where we still get stuck, where our own story shows up, and how we show up energetically in the coaching relationship.

At Integer, we view this as sacred work. Reflective practice is not indulgence—it’s integrity. When we slow down to examine our reactions, our blind spots, and our inner world, we become safer, more attuned partners to those we serve.

🧭 Honoring Intuition and Emotion

A coaching mindset honors both inner and outer awareness. We pay attention not only to what the client says, but also to what stirs within us. We let our intuition whisper—not to take control, but to deepen connection.

And we regulate ourselves so that we can be fully present. This means preparing mentally and emotionally for sessions, tending to our own nervous system, and knowing when we need support. A dysregulated coach cannot create a grounded space for someone else.

🌍 Context Matters

No two clients are the same. Their experiences, culture, identity, and environment shape how they show up—and how they feel safe. A coaching mindset remains open to these complexities and invites them into the room. We don’t coach from a one-size-fits-all model. We coach humans. Whole, nuanced, beautifully complex humans.

At Integer, we believe that to embody a coaching mindset is to live from the inside out—with honesty, humility, and deep care. When we commit to this way of being, we don’t just help our clients transform—we change too.