This article has its origins in several complementary sources: the personal coaching experiences of both myself and my co-authors in 14 books on coaching and mentoring; the experiences of coaches who I have supervised; and observation of coaches in real plays within coach assessment centres (robust validated processes for evaluating the competence and ‘fit’ of executive coaches for large-scale users of external coaches). The assessment centre approach is primarily a European and South African phenomenon currently but multinational companies that have experienced it have voiced intentions to bring it to all territories where they have a significant spend on executive coaching.