Anjali has just finished her mentor coaching session, and on paper it went well.
She sits in her car outside a café in Al Barsha with the recording feedback open on her phone. Her mentor coach was clear and generous. Strong on evoking awareness. Work on agreeing what the client wants from the session. Ask fewer questions that start with "why". Three useful notes. She writes them down.
None of them touch what's actually keeping her up at night.
It's her Tuesday client. A woman in the middle of a divorce, who talks about her husband in a way that sounds exactly like Anjali's own marriage before it ended. Last week, halfway through the session, Anjali realised she was angry with a man she has never met. She caught it. She stayed polite. But she left the session tired in a way that coaching doesn't usually make her tired, and she's been dreading next Tuesday ever since.
Her mentor coach didn't mention it, because it wasn't in the recording she submitted, and because it isn't really what mentor coaching is for.
What's the difference between coaching supervision and mentor coaching?
Mentor coaching develops your competence, with feedback on your coaching against ICF's Core Competencies, and it's required for an ICF credential. Coaching supervision looks after the practitioner: reflective space to explore your practice, your clients and how you show up. One sharpens the skill. The other sustains the person using it.
Both matter. They just do different jobs, and confusing them leaves a gap exactly where Anjali is sitting.
If you'd like to talk about where your own development is, and what kind of support it needs, Sara, our veteran RS Method Master Coach, offers a free conversation on Zoom. You can book it through our apply page. Or read on.
What does ICF say mentor coaching is?
ICF describes it on its mentoring and supervision requirements page (checked on 4 October 2026): "Mentor coaching is a collaborative process where you review and reflect on your coaching while you receive valuable feedback, guidance, and support from a more experienced coach."
In practice, a mentor coach listens to your recorded or observed sessions and gives you feedback against the ICF Core Competencies. The aim is competence you can demonstrate: the kind your performance evaluation and your credential application depend on.
The requirement itself, as checked on coachingfederation.org on 3 October 2026, is 10 hours of mentor coaching over at least three months, with at least three of those hours individual, one to one. Two changes are coming. From 1 January 2027, new mentor coaching hours must be with a mentor coach who holds ICF's Mentor Coach Specialization (MCS). From 1 April 2027, on the Portfolio path, the performance evaluation is replaced by an enhanced mentor coaching requirement. By the same date, ICF's announcement (checked on 4 October 2026) says accredited programmes "must transition away from the Performance Evaluation requirement and adopt the MCS mentor coaching requirement", and candidates on the Level 1 and Level 2 paths "won't need to do anything differently". The 10 hours, the three months and the three individual hours don't change.
If you're working through the rest of the checklist, our guide to ICF ACC requirements sets it out in full.
What does ICF say coaching supervision is?
ICF's coaching supervision page (checked on 4 October 2026) describes it as "a collaborative process where you engage in reflective dialogue with a trained supervisor to explore your practice, enhance your skills, and deepen your self-awareness." It adds that supervision "focuses not only on what you do as a coach, but on who you are and how you show up in your practice."
The requirements page draws the line between the two in one sentence: "While mentor coaching zooms in on fine-tuning your skills in relation to the ICF Core Competencies, coaching supervision takes a broader, more holistic view of your coaching." And it says what that broader view covers: "It invites you to reflect on the emotional complexities, ethical decisions, and the depth of your client relationships."
Two practical points, both from the same ICF pages. Coaching supervision isn't a requirement for earning your initial ICF credential. And for credential renewal, ICF lets you count up to 10 hours of coaching supervision, received, delivered or a mix of both, toward the Core Competency part of your Continuing Coach Education requirement.
Anjali's Tuesday client is a supervision question. Nothing in the recording was wrong. Something in the coach was moving.
Why does a coach need more than feedback on technique?
Because a technique is only as good as the nervous system running it.
Mentor coaching can tell you that you asked a leading question at minute twelve. It's far less likely to tell you why you asked it. And very often the why is the whole story. The client's grief touched yours. The client's anger sounded like a parent. The client's marriage sounded like your own. Your attention moved from the client to managing yourself, and the question you asked was a way out, for you.
That's what makes a coach tired in the way Anjali is tired. Not the hours. The leak. Some of your energy in every session goes into holding down your own unresolved material, and the client feels the difference even when they can't name it. I've written about what that does to coaching presence.
Supervision is one place to catch it. But the deeper answer comes earlier. It's why RSCI is built on what we call the Inner Work First Principle: the practitioner is transformed before the practitioner is trained. You do your own work first, inside the cohort, under supervision. So when a Tuesday client walks in carrying a story that sounds like yours, the charge has already come off your version of it. You can hear her story as hers.
If that's the part of your development you know is missing, a free conversation with Sara is the place to start. She'll tell you plainly whether we're the right fit. You can book it here.
How can I tell which kind of support I need right now?
Try a two-column sort after your next five sessions. It takes five minutes per session.
- Draw two columns: "what I did" and "what moved in me". One line per session in each.
- In the first column, note one moment you'd like feedback on. A question that fell flat, an agreement you skipped, a silence you filled. These are mentor coaching material.
- In the second column, note one moment you reacted. Irritation, rescue, boredom, a client you dread or a client you look forward to a little too much. These are supervision material.
- After five sessions, count which column is fuller, and which one you skipped. The column you avoided writing in is usually the one that matters.
- Take each column to the right room. Bring the first to your mentor coach, with the recording. Bring the second to supervision or to your own inner work. If you're working toward a credential from 2027 onward, ask your mentor coach whether they hold ICF's Mentor Coach Specialization.
In our experience, new coaches often find the first column easy and the second one uncomfortable. That discomfort is useful. It's a map of where your own work is.
What should a coach training give you on both fronts?
A credential path and a steady practitioner aren't the same outcome, and a good training plans for both. Look for three things.
- Mentor coaching built in. It should meet ICF's requirements and be included in what you pay, not bolted on later. At RSCI, the programme prices include the mentor coaching, assessment and credential preparation components.
- Your own work done first, under supervision. Inside the cohort, before you're trusted with a client's deeper material, so the Tuesday client doesn't become your Tuesday problem.
- A method for what's underneath. Feedback tells you what happened in a session. A method tells you what you're looking at when a session goes somewhere the recording can't show.
That's how RSCI is built. The ICF-accredited education inside our programmes is designed, delivered and certified by the International Institute of Coaching & Mentoring (IICM), an ICF-accredited organisation. The ACC and PCC credentials are awarded only by the ICF. You can see both programmes on our life coach training page.
Our Master Coach team, Sara among them, are practitioners trained through the RS Method who now hold real depth with clients. Our razor names what they were trained to do. To witness. To hold. To walk them home.
That holding matters, because of how far this work can reach in a person. Here's what Nihal Amin reported: "I got rid of my chronic pain which I had for over 15 years." A practitioner who works with this method has to stay steady at that depth, and supervision is part of how you stay steady. Nihal's outcome is Nihal's, and nobody can promise it to you or to a client. If you live with pain of your own, keep working with your doctor or the professional who treats you.
If you'd like supervision built into your training from the start, begin with a free conversation with Sara. Book it through our apply page.
Robert Simic, training the next generation.
P.S. Somewhere in your diary there's a client you've started dreading a little, and your feedback notes don't explain why. That's worth one conversation. Book your free call with Sara.