Inspiring coaches on the journey towards mastery of the craft

Wherever you are in your journey towards mastery, mentor coaching is an easy way to refine and strengthen your work with clients so you can bring your best coaching to every session.

Diana Bender

As an certified mentor coach at the PCC level in ICF, I’m your thought partner - someone on your side who will reflect on your practice with you, helping you see where you’re great and where you might improve as a coach.

My clients appreciate my practical approach, helping make your work as a coach both easier to do and more effective.
I'm also a fairly technical Mentor with regards to the ICF coaching competencies.  I enjoy the puzzle of mapping what coaches are doing in a coaching session with one more competencies. One of my distinct joys is seeing how the ICF competencies are implemented by different coaches in so many different ways.   As your Mentor, I'll help you see how a specific coaching session is meeting one or more competency (or could be meeting it with refinement).

How does it work best?

Mentor coaching is of course required by ICF to get or renew your ACC or PCC, but you can optimize those hours to truly make a difference in your work.  Reflective practice is the key. Take some time to decide where you want to focus, using the core competencies as your signposts. Then, together we'll listen to your recorded coaching session through the perspective of the core competencies you have chosen, looking for what's working well and what you can do to improve.

I'm a very good listener, I'm good at thinking on my feet, and my clients find that my positive energy inspires confidence!

Interested in getting better as a coach? The first step is a 15 minute complementary conversation to assess our fit and explore your goals for mentor coaching.

Let's talk!

What clients say...

You truly have changed my perception on coaching and made me more confident as a coach. I arrived with a lot of assumptions about mentoring and coaching and your natural, supportive style really helped with unlocking my potential as a coach. Thank you.
I absolutely loved reviewing recordings together because I could see the progress concretely and it was helpful to review, in practice, competencies of ICF.
She is resourceful, encouraging, recognizes your strengths as a coach and builds on them but also is very structured in her approach. I have seen my transformation as a coach in my practice and she has truly refined my skills.

My journey as a Mentor Coach

After studying leadership at Harvard, I eventually became a non-profit Executive Director in Seattle. As my organization grew, I began to weary of the administrative responsibilities, but I loved coaching the leaders who worked for me. I had already learned a lot about adult development, but coaching really drew me as a great way to unleash someone's full potential.  Thankfully I found SeattleCoach and thrived in the high touch, practice-heavy environment!  I am an 'entrepreneurial' coach, which means I built my individual coaching practice from scratch, mostly through word of mouth.  I now spend most of my time coaching and mentoring in addition to some teaching and consulting. 

From the very beginning, I've had a technical frame for my coaching practice, analyzing my own work and comparing it to the core competencies. I decided to become certified as a Mentor Coach, because it's a lovely blend of my inclination towards the competencies and my experience in adult development, coaching, analysis and problem-solving. 

In addition to leadership, adult development and mentor coaching, I've also studied psychology, spirituality and relationship-based coaching. You can learn more about my path here.