The Coaching Session I Nearly Made About Me

A few weeks ago, I sat across from a client and had to bite my tongue.

Gary was describing what it felt like when a new regional leader arrived and decided everything needed fixing. And I recognised every word of it, because it's happened to me. More than once, in my corporate career.

What I wanted to say was: I know exactly how that feels. What I actually did was stay quiet, and let him find his own way through it.

The words underneath the words

When someone new comes in and decides your way of working is wrong, what you actually hear is: you are rubbish. Not spoken aloud, but felt all the same. You've planned things carefully, brought your team with you, and built something that works. Then somebody arrives and treats all of it as a problem to be solved.

I've sat with that feeling myself. It's not really about the processes or the projects. It's personal, even when nobody intends it to be.

Sitting with Gary, I felt that same pull of recognition. And that's exactly where I had to be careful.

Why I couldn't say it

If I'd told Gary about my own experience in that moment, it would have felt like empathy. It isn't. It's collusion.

The moment I anchor a client in my feelings, I stop holding space for his. He needs to work out what matters to him, not confirm that his coach has been there too. That's a hard line to hold as a coach, because the instinct to say "me too" is strong, and the temptation to bring your own history into someone else's process is real. The risk isn't that you're unhelpful. It's that you take the session back to your own unfinished business instead of theirs.

What the new leader gets wrong

There’s something that a lot of people miss in these situations: the new leader is usually just as exposed as everyone they're unsettling.

They're the unknown quantity, under pressure to prove they were the right hire, working to their own version of "what will I do in my first 100 days?" Harvard Business Review's advice to new leaders is consistent on this point: the first months should be spent building understanding before making changes, not performing certainty.

Too many arrive believing action is what proves credibility. It isn't. Listening is. And for everyone standing in the path of that performance, it lands as a verdict on their worth rather than the leader's own insecurity showing through.

The road Gary's still deciding on

We haven't resolved Gary's situation, because it isn't the kind of thing that resolves in a quarter. What's changed is that he's stopped taking it personally. He understands now that this was never really about him.

What he hasn't decided yet is bigger: whether this is still the road he wants to be on, or whether he needs to find one that plays to his strengths rather than fighting to stay upright on ground that's been made unstable underneath him. That's a question I can't answer for him, and it's one worth sitting with honestly rather than rushing past.

Where this leaves you

If you're the one whose road just changed, the version of this you can control is smaller than it feels, but it's real. If you're the one arriving and changing the road, the version of this you can control is bigger than you think, and it starts with listening before you act.

Either way, the question worth asking yourself is the same: is this still your road, or is it time to find a new one?

If you're wrestling with either side of that, message me and I'll happily talk it through.