The Identity Shift

Why Your Service Background Can Make You an Exceptional Coach

Having spent a couple of decades in management and a good chunk of that time focused on coaching, mentoring and developing people, I started to notice that a lot of the coaches, and consultants we hired were from a service (Military, Fire, Police, Health Service, background). It turns out people leaving service careers, whether that’s the military, police, fire, or health service, often have an incredible, almost natural, aptitude for coaching.

But why is that? It's certainly not just chance. It boils down to what I think of as the 'Identity Shift'. You take all the valuable experience you have built up during your years of service and you are repurposing it. It's about understanding how the very skills and mindset forged during your service career are precisely what sets you up to be an excellent coach and its what potential coaching clients are looking for.

Leveraging Your Built-In Leadership Toolkit

During your days in service, leadership isn’t just theoretical, its practiced day in d…