Coaches, is the ICF Police a Member of Your Inner Critic Team?

For many coaches I work with in supervision, there's a peculiar voice that joins their inner critic chorus—what I've come to call the "ICF Police." This voice scrutinises your every intervention against an imagined standard of coaching purity.

Is the ICF Police part of your Inner Critic brigade?

I asked this question on LinkedIn a few days ago and was struck by the outpouring of recognition and the debate it started (you can read it in full here).

An army of inner critics emerged in the comments as coaches openly acknowledged their saboteurs.

For some, it appears with a whistle, ready to blow at the slightest deviation from "pure coaching." For others, it wears high-visibility gear, impossible to ignore as it highlights perceived mistakes.

Many describe this critic meticulously reviewing the "evidence" of their coaching failures after sessions. Others find it particularly loud when working with other coaches—they see aspects of our work in a way regular clients never would.

"That was so leading." "A proper coach wouldn't have said that." "Am I still coaching?"

Sound familiar?

But here's the thing—this internal critic isn't helping you become a better coach. It often misinterprets what good coaching actually is.

When Rules Become Rigid

When we train as coaches, we're given frameworks, competencies, and guidelines that serve as essential foundations. But something interesting happens as we develop: these helpful principles can transform into harsh internal standards that we apply relentlessly to ourselves.

They often morph into rigid rules we cling to for certainty—especially for those transitioning into coaching from other careers. We have no performance reviews, no boss—so how do we know if we’re doing a good job? We look for what is available as a proxy for competence.

To be clear, the issue isn't with the ICF or any professional framework—it’s how our inner critic weaponises these standards. In coaching circles, the ICF tends to be the most visible symbol of 'doing it right' (with its progression from ACC to PCC to the prestigious MCC). But if not the ICF, another 'eye of the profession' would take its place. The framework merely becomes a vessel for that critical part of us (the critical parent, superego, or saboteur) to express itself.

The ICF Police at Work

In my years of training coaches and providing supervision, I've seen this pattern repeatedly. Recently, a coach brought a case to supervision where they had a powerful intuition about their client’s stuck energy from the first moments. Instead of sharing this observation, they tried to tease it out through open questions, thinking that bringing the observation directly would be "too leading" for a proper coach.

That's the ICF Police at work.

The irony? Masterful coaching isn’t about perfect adherence to rules. And the greater irony? What the coach avoided would have been a perfectly valid (and ICF-approved!) intervention—great coaches often share their intuitions, feelings, and sensations in a non-attached way when in service to the client as a way to evoke awareness. Great coaching is about bringing all aspects of yourself fully in service of the client's journey. I wrote about bringing ourselves more to the work here.

What often gets in the way is fear—of risk, of rocking the boat, of making the client uncomfortable. But we need to ask: is avoiding discomfort actually what the client needs, or is it just our own discomfort we're avoiding?

Mastery vs. Inner Criticism

An interesting distinction emerged in my conversations with other coaches—the difference between helpful quality reflection and unhelpful inner criticism.

How do we maintain quality standards without succumbing to the harsh voice of the inner critic? The key lies in approaching our interventions with curiosity: Where might my ego get in the way? Where have I grown already? Where could I stretch next? When we examine our coaching with genuine openness rather than judgment, we create space for growth without crushing our confidence.

A coach on the journey to mastery asks: "What might serve this client better next time?" The inner critic declares: "You're a fraud."

Finding the Balance

What I see some coaches do is conclude: "I'll get my accreditation and then do my own thing," rejecting the norms as too rigid. But I often think this is such a shame—this is not about either/or. These guidelines are what make coaching a true profession—not just an open field where anyone can call themselves a coach and do whatever they please. How can we create spaces of dialogue to engage with them critically rather than either accept them blindly or outright reject them?

For great coaches, as we develop, that tension doesn't disappear—it just becomes a more familiar companion that we learn to dance with rather than fight against. There's so much reflective value in diving into that tension.

My Own Journey

When I transitioned from my corporate career, I remember obsessing over building an armoury of frameworks, exercises, and "perfect" questions. The breakthrough came when I realised that what transforms coaching isn't technical perfection but authentic presence, the confidence to trust my intuition, and freedom from perfectionism.

So here’s my challenge: What if the transition from technical competence to true mastery isn’t about adding more tools, but about peeling away layers of self-doubt, performance anxiety, and the stories we tell ourselves about what it means to be good at this?

Beyond Technical Perfection

As AI continues to develop, I believe the distinction between technically sound coaching and truly transformative coaching will become even more pronounced. Already we’re seeing AI systems that can ask decent coaching questions and follow basic frameworks.

What AI cannot replicate (at least not yet) is genuine human connection, intuition built on lived experience, and the courage to be present with another person in their struggle or transformation. The very things our inner critic often dismisses or devalues are what make our coaching irreplaceable.

The Wisdom in Imperfection

Perhaps the greatest irony in this whole dynamic is that our clients often benefit most when we drop our perfectionism and show up as authentically human. The moments where we might think we've "failed" as coaches—by sharing an observation, expressing genuine curiosity, or stepping outside the "proper" coaching approach—often create the most profound connections. When we take our mask off, we invite our clients to do the same.

Mastery in coaching isn't about purifying our practice of all non-coaching elements. It's about developing the wisdom to know when to follow the principles we've learned and when to trust our intuition about what this unique client needs in this particular moment.

Even Jung captured this tension between theory and practice:

“That is why I say to any beginner: learn your theories as well as you can, but put them aside when you touch the miracle of the living soul. Not theories but your creative individuality alone must decide.”

So let's continue to develop our skills and honour the coaching profession's ethical foundations while remembering that at its heart, coaching is a human-to-human connection. And that connection flourishes not in rigidity, but in the freedom to be present, responsive, and real.

And next time you hear the ICF Police in your head, pause and ask—am I serving the client, or my fear of getting it wrong?

Trust that your development as a coach is a journey of both mastering skills and finding your authentic voice. The most transformative coaching happens at that intersection.

If exploring this tension resonates with you, consider joining a reflective space like supervision where you can examine these dynamics with curiosity rather than judgment.

A Tool for Taming Your ICF Police

To help you notice when your inner critic appears during sessions, I've created a Session Reflection Sheet that includes a dedicated space for catching your internal chatter.

This simple tool has helped many coaches I work with to transform their relationship with their inner critic.

You're welcome to download it for free here—print it out, make a cup of tea, and give yourself permission to reflect without judgment.

* Photo of the Police Officer by King's Church International on Unsplash