Why sector-specialist coaching gets better outcomes than a generalist approach

If you’re responsible for coaching investment in, say, a law firm, one important question is, of course: “is this person a good coach?” But there’s another question that matters just as much: “how will this coach be viewed by our most senior, sceptical people – the ones who disengage fastest if they don’t see the coach as credible in their world?”

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Senior people in professional services are used to being discerning about expertise. They have spent years building careers in demanding, highly selective environments. They know their own world well and they can be sceptical of people who appear to be offering insights into it without really understanding it. Superficial as it may seem, a few familiar lines on a CV can establish the credibility that provides a first step towards trust.

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Credibility facilitates connection. If a coachee feels that the coach “gets it”, through lived experience, it can help build empathy. These qualities – empathy, connection, trust – are critical in coaching. Coachees are more likely to be open when they feel understood. They are more likely to explore the things they don't normally say out loud. And they are more willing to be challenged when they trust that the person challenging them understands the context in which they are operating.

Coaching is about helping someone think more clearly about their own reality and making high quality decisions from this insight. If the coach doesn't understand the reality of the partnership model, the pressure points specific to a Magic Circle firm versus a mid-tier international firm, the extreme pressures, then the coachee spends energy translating their world for the coach, rather than examining it. The coaching is slower to build.

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We see the same pattern with lateral hire partners, who often experience something akin to organ rejection. They can be technically welcomed but culturally misplaced. A coach who has seen it before can name it early rather than let the Partner spend a year wondering why nothing fits.

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Multiply that across forty or sixty coachees and the cost mounts up – lost time, diluted insight and a coachee who quietly concludes the coach "doesn't really get it" and disengages before the work truly begins.

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This is why professional services backgrounds matter so much in this line of work. A coach who has been at the sharp end of an environment like the one their coachee operates in isn't learning the culture through the coachee – they already carry it.

Does a coach need have a professional background in the coachee’s industry? No. There are excellent coaches who work across sectors and provide value without having worked in their coachee's particular field. And there are doubtless many ex-lawyers, ex-accountants and ex-bankers who offer poor value as a coach.

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Indeed, if the only available choice were between a great coach who’s never been, say, a lawyer or an ex-lawyer who’s now a distinctly average coach, we’d urge you to pick the great coach every time.

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But when an exceptional coach happens to have lived the world inhabited by the coachee? Well that’s the true sweet spot and it provides the conditions for an extraordinary coaching experience.

The Tall Wall works with law firms and other professional services organisations on coaching for Partners and Partner candidates. If any of this resonates, we're always happy to talk it through.

Gareth Lee spent over 25 years as a lawyer and leader, in Magic Circle private practice and in the legal and front-office functions of major global banks, with responsibility for international teams and advising executive committees and boards. That background means he has sat on both sides of the table. His coaching draws on psychology, mindfulness and neuroscience, but starts from lived experience of these environments rather than from the outside looking in. Clients describe his coaching as calm, insightful and transformational.