I had a conversation this morning with my business partner, Kathleen Brenner about a simple question: Why do people need coaching?

We have been expanding The Thriving Lawyer from our original online self-coaching course into a broader offering that includes executive and leadership coaching for lawyers and legal teams, as well as group professional development sessions.

As we talked about our coaching offer, it got me thinking about something I see quite often in my work as an executive coach. Many people come to coaching because their organisation has selected them for it. They have been given a coach, perhaps as part of a leadership program, because they are moving into a new role, or because the organisation sees potential in their development.

And quite often, they are not entirely sure what coaching is, or what they are supposed to do with it.

I usually spend some time at the beginning exploring what might actually be on offer in a coaching engagement.

For me, coaching is first of all a place to reflect and think.

You do not need to arrive with a perfectly formed goal.

Sometimes you know exactly what you want to work on. Other times, all you know is that something does not feel quite right.

Perhaps you keep having the same difficulty with someone.

Perhaps you have moved into a bigger role and the way you used to operate is no longer working as well as it used to.

Perhaps you are facing an important decision.

Or perhaps you are simply questioning what you want next.

All of those are good places to start.

Sometimes people are very ready for change and want to take action immediately.

But sometimes they are still exploring. They know something needs to shift, but they are not quite ready to do anything about it yet. (I think coaching can be useful here too).

You can bring thoughts that are still half-formed. You can say things out loud that you may not feel able to say anywhere else. You can change your mind. You can sit with uncertainty for a while.

Over time, I think the coach and client can become thinking partners.

There is support in that relationship, but there should also be some challenge.

A coach might ask you a question you have not yet considered.

They might notice a pattern you are not aware of.

They might become curious about an assumption you are making.

And sometimes the interesting question is not only:

“What should I do?”

It is also:

“How am I seeing this situation?”

What am I assuming?

What feels at stake for me?

Why does this situation affect me so strongly?

What am I not seeing?

Could there be another way of understanding what is happening?

This is one of the things I am becoming increasingly interested in through a developmental approach to coaching.

Sometimes we can be very quick to solve the problem in front of us. But there can also be value in staying with it a little longer and becoming curious about the way we are making sense of it.

Part of that, I think, is developing our capacity to take different perspectives.

When we are under pressure, we can become very attached to our own interpretation of what is happening. We see the situation from where we are standing, which is understandable, but sometimes it can also be very limiting.

Coaching can create space to step outside that view.

What might this look like from the perspective of the other person?

What might your team be experiencing?

What might your organisation be asking of you now that it was not asking of you a year ago?

And perhaps most importantly:

What is this situation asking you to become more capable of?

As people grow into more complex roles, the answer is not always to work harder or know more.

Sometimes the developmental work is about becoming able to hold more perspectives at once, tolerate more ambiguity, see competing needs without immediately needing to resolve them, and respond to the environment with a little more choice.

That does not always produce a neat action step at the end of a coaching session.

But it can create something deeper: greater awareness, more perspective, more choice and, over time, a different way of responding.

Of course, the relationship with the coach matters enormously. You need to feel that you can talk to your coach.

Coaches are trained to build trust and rapport, but there still needs to be a human connection. You need to feel able to bring what is really on your mind rather than what you think you are supposed to talk about in coaching.

And there is another layer when an organisation is paying for the coaching.

The coaching relationship should still provide a confidential space for the individual. At the same time, I think it is useful to understand the wider context in which that person is developing.

What is happening in their role?

What is the organisation asking more of them?

What kind of leader or professional are they trying to become?

What capabilities will they need as their role becomes more complex?

What would their development make possible for their team and the people around them?

Ideally, there is some alignment between what matters to the person and what matters to the organisation.

That does not mean the organisation decides what happens in every coaching conversation. And I do not think coaching should become another form of performance management.

But the organisational context matters.

We all operate within systems, teams and relationships. Our development affects other people, just as those environments influence us.

So perhaps the question is not only:

“What do I want to change?”

It might also be:

“What is this situation asking me to grow into?”

That is increasingly how I think about coaching. 

A place where you are supported enough to be honest, challenged enough to think differently, and given enough space to discover what change might look like for you.

You do not need to have all the answers before you start.

Sometimes being curious about the questions is enough.

This is also the thinking behind the coaching work Kathleen and I are now developing through The Thriving Lawyer, creating space for lawyers and legal leaders not only to solve the problem in front of them, but to grow their capacity to meet what comes next.