Most leaders I meet should not be in coaching. The ones who should are usually the ones who hesitate longest. After twenty years of these conversations, I have started noticing the patterns.
Three signals that mean you should make the call
One: you have stopped hearing things you do not already think. The conversations around you have become flatter. People agree. Decisions get easier. This is not a sign you have got better at leading – it is a sign that the people around you have learned what you want to hear. A coach is one of the very few people structurally positioned to tell you the thing you do not want to hear.
Two: there is a conversation you owe someone, and you have been avoiding it for more than three weeks. The longer this drags on, the bigger the cost – not just in the relationship, but in your own sense of integrity as a leader. If you can name the conversation right now, that is the signal.
Three: you are about to make a significant decision and there is nobody outside the system to test it with. Major hires, restructures, exits, expansions, capital decisions. The judgement calls that matter most are the ones we most need someone outside the room to challenge.
Two signals that mean you do not need a coach yet
One: you are in crisis right now. Coaching is the wrong tool for crisis. If you are in the middle of an acute season – a serious incident, a mental health crisis, a marriage breakdown – you need a different kind of help first. Coaching is for what comes after.
Two: you have not done the basic things yet. If your calendar does not reflect your priorities, if you have unhad conversations you know about, if you have stopped exercising and sleeping – start there. Coaching cannot substitute for the basics. It can only build on them.
What to do
If you recognise yourself in the three signals above, the next step is a conversation. The Leadership Clarity Session is built for exactly this – a 90-minute working session to test whether ongoing coaching would be useful, with no expectation either way.