One concept that haunts many of the executive coaches I work with in supervision is what “success” means, as a coach. Of course, while success can be represented by many possible aspects of our coaching work, one very concrete measure that coaches often use for themselves is … money.

A few years ago, my dear colleague Yvonne Thackray asked me, “Who are your ideal clients?” I was puzzled by the question. “I can work well with any leader who wants to work with me”, I said. To me, it was a simple question of them being motivated to achieve their coaching goals, and their feeling with a comfortable fit with me. She countered by saying that she suspected that that might not be the full picture.

In a recent coaching conversation, a senior-level female executive, Angela*, raised the topic of the tension she was experiencing between encouraging a subordinate to be collaborative, and that person’s respect for her authority.

I have realized over my time as an executive coach (and prior to that, as an OD consultant) that I have assembled my own personal treasure box of what I call “heuristics”.  These are the pithy sayings, models, and go-to concepts that I have found useful in describing my meaning, in terms of providing a contribution to my client in that moment in our coaching conversation.  (Understanding the nature of that prompting urge is, I suspect, a topic for another blog-piece!)