What is coaching, really?
Starting from the common misunderstandings
“Coaching” is as tricky a word as “leadership.”
The meaning people attach to it can differ depending on who is using it and who is receiving it.
In this piece, I want to sort out what coaching actually looks like, from my own experience as a client and a practitioner, through the lens of misunderstandings.
Misunderstanding 1: “Coaching is for people who have stopped moving.”
At first glance, coaching seems to be for people who are lost or whose feet have stopped. But many of the clients I meet are, if anything, people who keep moving.
That doesn’t always mean moving forward. Some act a lot to quiet a present anxiety, or to avoid something they don’t want to look at directly, and end up tired from it.
They may sense that they are caught on past experience, on their relationships with those around them, or on the limits of the story they have been telling about themselves, and yet keep running on the same operating system.
Coaching can be a place to slow down a little and recover the question “What do I actually want?” Having seen this pattern often, I don’t think coaching is only for people who have stopped.
Misunderstanding 2: “Talking to friends, seniors, or mentors is probably enough.”
I’m fortunate to have good friends and mentors, so I understand why one would want to think this.
People who empathize, who know us well, who understand our character and share their own experience: conversations with them can certainly bring relief, reassurance, and new hints, and often that is enough.
But someone who patiently waits while we think things through, and who digs into a part we hadn’t noticed, yet a theme we need to face now, is a slightly different kind of presence.
Rather than empathy for the situation or advice about what to do, a coach draws out the strength to move forward from the question “What really matters to you?” That, I think, is a different appetite altogether.
If the way we frame an issue is off to begin with, or if we are attached to a “solution” we already hold, we won’t get what we are looking for. Over the sessions, a coach gently loosens that stubbornness, or bias, that sits at the entrance.
People trained as coaches almost always make time with a friend who has the skills for peer coaching, or with a professional coach. They know it is a different kind of time with a different kind of influence from conversations with friends, seniors, or mentors. I do the same: apart from the stimulation I get from friends and mentors, I make time to be coached myself.
Misunderstanding 3: “I feel I shouldn’t start without a clear goal.”
This is another one I hear a lot, especially from people shaped by a culture where sensing that you are taking someone’s time, or being a bother, is considered a virtue.
“I’ll try coaching once I’ve sorted out a bit more what I want to talk about” falls in a similar category.
The decision of when to start coaching matters, given cost-effectiveness in both time and money. But it isn’t widely known (I feel) that sharpening the resolution of “what I want to become” is half of the value of coaching (some coaches would say more than half).
It is really fine to begin with only a vague question such as “How do I want to live the next five or ten years?” By working with what has been on your mind lately, moments that stirred emotion, and feelings not yet in words, many people gradually find a theme they want to dig into, or an “axis within themselves.”
Misunderstanding 4: “Coaching sounds like being told ‘Try harder!’ or ‘Do this.’”
Many people think so because of the image of a sports coach, shouting from the sideline.
What I want to tell them is that a coach is neither a cheerleader nor a teacher.
There is basically no “you should” or “it would be good if you did.” A coach cannot run alongside your life forever.
The purpose is for clients to keep living their days in their own way, and to move toward the state they want on their own, even after the coaching relationship ends. So the main job is to offer questions like “What do you think?” and “What do you really want?”, and a safe space in which to sit with them.
It is not encouragement of the “try harder” kind. A coach is someone who recognizes the client’s way of being, their mindset, actions, and results, and who affirms the client’s own “I want to do more of this.”
Sometimes I throw a next step into the conversation as a proposal. But the client always has the options of yes, no, or a different proposal, so it differs from “Let’s do this.” Coaches vary in character and belief; this is the stance I take.
So what is coaching, in the end?
What do you actually do in coaching?
- Put the larger purpose into words together. Whether you already have a sense of it, have it clearly set, or have no idea at all, we sort it out together and sharpen the resolution.
- Each session works with “now.” A thought that came up that day, an event that shook you, a theme that is alive. (With me, a set is usually about six sessions.) The coach’s role is to work through each session while connecting it to the larger purpose explored in the first one.
- The changes between sessions matter too. The time when you are not talking with your coach is important: thinking deepens, feelings move, you try new actions. What you faced in the session and what you worked on in between can lead to new insight after some time. I tend to be a client who slacks on the action plan I agreed with my coach, yet a few days before a session I find myself recalling the last conversation, what I felt and said, and reflecting on what I’m doing, and that alone can lead to change.
Ultimately, what do you get from coaching?
These days, many coaches explain the value of coaching in their own words.
My favorite is an image based on a diagram a CTI facilitator once drew to show “the value of coaching,” shown below.
What I consider the ultimate gain from coaching is the state of “Let me try this.”
On the way there, people find something they want enough to go that far, sharpen the resolution, raise their sense of self-efficacy, and spend time on self-acceptance. The pattern differs from person to person.
The “wall” in the picture differs for everyone. It might be the perception that your options are limited; it might simply be the unsettled feeling you have right now; or you may know clearly what lies beyond the wall but not how to get there.
A bonus: what should you look for when choosing a coach?
If you’ve read this far and feel, “I’ve never been interested, but maybe coaching is worth a look,” here is one last thing: what to look at when choosing a coach.
Below is my own, entirely personal order of priority. Items 1 to 3 especially can be learned through the trial sessions or first meetings that many coaches offer.
- Is there psychological safety? Do you feel you could talk about anything? Someone you don’t have to worry about, wondering how they’ll react or what they’ll think of you when you say something, is best.
- Do you find yourself saying “I talked too much”? If things came out that you hadn’t planned to say, that may be a sign of good fit. At a subconscious level it is a feeling of “this person will hold it,” which overlaps a little with psychological safety. Like therapists or acupuncture and bodywork practitioners, chemistry matters with coaches.
- Budget range. This varies enormously from coach to coach, so check.
- Past clients’ voices. Fit is individual, and there is no guarantee that someone else’s experience will repeat for you, but it gives a sense of what types of clients a coach tends to work with.
- Something in common. Opinions differ on this, and of course hiring a coach with nothing in common can work perfectly well. Still, looking around me, and given how much of the world AI conversations can now cover, I suspect combinations that do share something will grow. For example, a doctor with a coach who has worked in healthcare, or a Japanese person living abroad with a Japanese coach experienced overseas. The angles are endless: nationality, race, gender, culture, title, life stage, sector. A coach doesn’t need experience very close to your own background, but because this ties back to 1 and 2 above, it quietly matters.
That was a set of personal, subjective notes from a coach in her sixth year.
I hope it reaches the people who need it.