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The Real Difference Coaching Makes

What’s so powerful about a coaching conversation? The answer is simple and unique to coaching. The relationship between coach and client is a partnership of equals. It’s what ultimately differentiates coaching from other helping professions.

Therapy, counseling and mentoring presume a hierarchy. The helping professional is seen as an advisor to the client. The client enters the relationship seeking advise and expertise. And the professional’s role becomes providing answers.

Unlock Potential

A coach partners with the client to clarify thinking and unlock information and potential that already exists within the client. This unique relationship honors the client and begins with the foundation that Nancy Kline penned so eloquently, “the mind that holds the problem holds the solution”.

The partnering aspect of coaching creates space for new possibilities that are derived by the client rather than the “advisor”. The coach’s objectivity is powerful in this relationships as it offers the opportunity for conscious listening that leads to breakthrough observations and inquiry. Coaches inspire increased self-esteem, increased resourcefulness, and the client gains the confidence to trust their intuition the next time they are faced with a problem. Coaching is an empowering partnership of equals that creates a safe space for the frontal cortex to relax and think clearly, possibly for the first time. It’s when we feel safe, heard and like we matter that our thinking clarifies and we begin to see new perspectives and new possibilities. The quality of our thinking is proportional to the quality of listening.

Self-Management Is The Key

Great coaches practice humility. It’s the magic ingredient. There is no room for ego in Coaching, and when the ego makes an appearance, self-management is the key. To go from good to great as a coach, the most critical skill to hone and practice is learning to be humble. Being a professional coach means agreeing to hold space for another person. To listen without an agenda. To approach with curiosity and interest in the person’s mindset- not the problem. Coaching facilitates the growth of another person by removing self-interest from the equation. Rather than provide answers, assumptions, presumptions and opinions, coaching presumes the person being coached is whole and capable and most importantly, resourceful.

As Simon Sinek says, “practice being the last to speak”. Self-management means quieting your judgment and checking for meaning rather than making statements. In a society that typically values answers rather than questions, self-management is an art to learn. It implies mind like water, dancing in the moment, and being willing to quiet the voice in your head to make space for the voice across from you.


We need more coaches in the world. So the question is, who will you coach today?