And how to avoid them.
You've done the reading. You've practiced your questioning techniques.
You genuinely want to help people grow.
So why does something still feel off in your coaching sessions?
Here's the truth: most new coaches make the same handful of mistakes.
They're not obvious errors – and you won't even find them listed in textbooks.
But they quietly erode your credibility with every session, making it harder to become the type of influential coach you set out to become.
The good news? These mistakes are entirely fixable. Once you know what to look for.
This is the big one. And almost every new coach we see falls into it in their first live coaching practice.
You're in a session. Your coachee describes a problem.
You immediately see the solution – it's obvious to you. So, you share it. Helpful, right?
Wrong.
The moment you offer a solution; you've stopped coaching and started consulting.
You've also sent a subtle but powerful message: "I don't trust you to figure this out yourself."
What makes this mistake so dangerous is that it often feels like success.
Your coachee leaves with an answer. They might even thank you for it. But you've created dependency rather than development.
And next time they face a challenge, they'll need you again – not because you're a great coach, but because you've trained them to rely on your thinking instead of their own.
The shift here isn't about withholding help. It's about where the insight comes from.
A skilled coach creates the conditions for their coachee to discover their own solutions.
That requires patience, genuine curiosity, and the discipline to sit with silence when every instinct is screaming at you to jump in.
As we often say on our coaching programmes: the best coaches are comfortable being the one to give the space.
Their value lies in what they draw out, not what they put in.
"Have you considered that maybe your manager is actually trying to help you?"
That's not a poor question. That's an opinion with a question mark stuck on the end.
New coaches often believe they're asking open, exploratory questions when they're actually steering the conversation toward their own conclusions.
The coachee picks up on this immediately – even if they can't articulate it.
It breaks trust and turns coaching into a guessing game where they try to figure out what answer you're looking for.
Genuine coaching questions come from curiosity, not agenda.
They open up thinking rather than narrowing it down.
"What's your read on your manager's intentions?" is a different question entirely from the leading version above.
It invites the coachee to explore their own perspective without the invisible pressure of your assumptions.
Recording your coaching sessions (with permission) and reviewing them is one of the fastest ways to spot this pattern.
You'll likely be surprised how often you're guiding rather than genuinely inquiring.
This is exactly why our Train the Trainer programme includes camera technician support – seeing yourself in action reveals habits you'd never notice otherwise.
Coaching isn't therapy. It's not a friendly chat. And it's definitely not an open-ended exploration with no destination.
New coaches often confuse "following the coachee's agenda" with "letting the conversation go wherever it wants."
The result is sessions that feel meandering and unsatisfying for everyone. Your coachee leaves thinking, "That was nice, but what did we actually achieve?"
Structure doesn't mean rigidity.
It means having a clear framework that keeps the session purposeful while still allowing space for the coachee to explore.
Models like GROW exist for good reason – they provide the scaffolding that prevents coaching from collapsing into aimless conversation.
The skill is holding the structure lightly.
You're not marching through a checklist. You're using the framework to ensure the session has direction, that commitments are made, and that your coachee leaves with genuine clarity about their next steps.
Without this, you might be a lovely person to talk to. But you're not demonstrating the value that makes someone want to keep working with you – or recommend you to others.
Here's a question: when was the last time you were coached?
Many new coaches focus so intensely on developing their skills that they forget to experience coaching from the other side.
They read books, attend workshops, and practice techniques – but they don't regularly sit in the coachee's chair.
This creates a blind spot.
You lose touch with what it feels like to be coached. The vulnerability of being asked a question you can't immediately answer. The frustration when a coach doesn't quite understand where you're coming from. The breakthrough moment when something suddenly clicks.
Experiencing coaching yourself – teaches you things that no qualification ever will.
It keeps you humble and connected to what your coachees are going through.
Beyond being coached yourself, there's the question of formal development.
The coaching world has become increasingly professionalised, and clients are more discerning than ever.
An ILM qualification isn't just a certificate to hang on your wall. It's evidence that you've been trained properly, that you've been assessed against recognised standards, and that you take your professional development seriously.
The coaches who build sustainable relationships with the people they coach aren't the ones who "learned on the job."
They're the ones who invested in proper training and continue to develop throughout their careers.
You'd be amazed how many coaching relationships go wrong because of poor contracting at the start.
New coaches are often so eager to get into the "real work" that they rush through – or skip entirely – the foundational conversations about expectations, boundaries, confidentiality, and what success looks like.
This creates problems down the line that are much harder to fix than they would have been to prevent.
What happens when your coachee’s manager asks you how the sessions are going?
What if your coachee wants to discuss something that crosses into territory requiring professional support you're not qualified to provide?
What if they expect you to be available between sessions for quick advice, and you haven't established that boundary?
Good contracting is the foundation of trust.
It demonstrates professionalism and protects both you and your coachee. It also sets the conditions for honest, challenging conversations later – because you've already established that this is a professional relationship with clear parameters.
The coaches who get this right spend proper time at the start of every engagement clarifying expectations. They revisit the contract when circumstances change. And they're explicit about what coaching is and isn't, so there's no confusion about the nature of the relationship.
Look at these five mistakes and you'll notice a pattern. They all stem from the same root cause: insufficient training and supervised practice.
Reading about coaching is not the same as being coached on your coaching.
Understanding a concept intellectually is different from embodying it in the pressure of a real session.
And practicing with willing friends doesn't prepare you for the complexity of professional coaching relationships.
This is why proper coaching qualifications matter.
Not because they make you a perfect coach – nothing does that – but because they give you the structured practice, feedback, and supervised experience that accelerates your development and helps you avoid the credibility-killing mistakes that hold so many new coaches back.
Our ILM Level 5 Certificate in Effective Coaching and Mentoring and our ILM Level 7 Certificate in Executive Coaching and Mentoring are designed specifically for people who want to coach with genuine competence and confidence.
It's not a box-ticking exercise.
It's rigorous, practical training that addresses exactly the kinds of challenges we've discussed here – with real practice, real feedback, and real development of your coaching capability.
If you're already coaching but want to sharpen your delivery skills, our supervised coaching sessions offer feedback and insight from our senior coaches who support you to see yourself in action and refine the habits that matter most.
The difference between coaches who build thriving practices and those who struggle isn't natural talent.
It's whether they've invested in developing genuine capability – and whether they continue that investment throughout their careers.
Which mistakes on this list hit closest to home for you? And what are you going to do about it?
The BCF Group has been helping employees and team members develop their skills for over 25 years.
Our ILM coaching qualifications and Train the Trainer programmes are designed for people who are serious about building real capability – not just collecting certificates. Get in touch to find out which programme is right for you.