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Coaching is being increasingly seen as social activity which promotes conversation to deepen knowledge, challenge predisposition, create novel understanding and possibilities (Shoukry and Cox, 2018), positioning coaching a is relational, humanist, meaning-making practice (Garvey, 2011). This rationalises the significance of human experience, meaning and sense-making over measurements.
Your client, Quinn, has been talking for several minutes about a conflict at work, cycling through the same details, when something shifts. You haven’t offered advice or interpretation, only your full attention and a reflection of what you hear. Quinn stops mid-sentence, looks at you directly, and says, “I don’t think anyone has ever really heard this before.” The conflict itself hasn’t changed, but something in Quinn has. Being witnessed turns out to be transformative in ways insight alone cannot achieve.
Imagine standing at the edge of a busy street market. You raise your camera, and suddenly the chaos resolves into a single frame, with a grandmother's weathered hands exchanging coins in the foreground and colorful awnings patterned against a pale sky in the background. The choices you make reveal what was there all along, waiting to be recognized and appreciated.
Your client, Robin, has achieved everything once dreamed of: the promotion, the recognition, the financial security. Yet as Robin recounts these achievements, something doesn't hold together. The phrases sound flat and rehearsed, as if narrating someone else's biography. When you ask what this achievement means, Robin pauses for a long moment before admitting uncertainty. The story being told no longer seems to fit.
You’ve probably sat through at least one webinar, panel, or conference session on AI in coaching by now. They’re practically unavoidable. The better ones address confidentiality, perhaps noting that data retention policies vary across platforms or cautioning you to anonymize identities when pasting notes into a chatbot. While AI can be remarkable, I’ve walked away largely dismayed by how many ethical considerations go unaddressed.
Imagine you're in a coaching session. Your client, Alex, is brilliant and articulate, and has done all the "right" work. They’ve read books, attended workshops, and can clearly explain why they continue to sabotage their own success. Yet as Alex describes their "breakthrough insight," you notice their shoulders hunch, their breathing shallow, their chest constrict, and their hands clench.
Alex's mind may have figured it out, but their body is still living the old story.
The title comes first. The decision comes later, sometimes years later.
Many of us are drawn to executive coaching because we are "seekers" and "solvers" by nature. We pride ourselves on our ability to navigate complex human systems. But here is an uncomfortable truth worth sitting with: many of us share a similar profile with the clients who frustrate us the most. We are high-achievers who have spent a lifetime using intellect to stay safe.
For LGBTQ+ coaches, clients, and allies, the current political climate is not abstract. It is personal. It lives in the nervous system. It shows up in conversations that are avoided, words that are edited, and identities that are carefully managed rather than freely expressed. And yet, coaching is built on the promise of authenticity.
Imagine sitting across from a new client you're excited to work with. Despite a strong match in topics, interests, and approaches, you sense their guardedness. They answer questions, but something's missing. The real conversation—the one beneath the surface—hasn't begun. Rapport, that intangible sense of mutual trust, hasn't taken root yet.
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