Margo was extremely bright and had recently earned a doctorate in education from an Ivy League School. She came to our first coaching session with a very clear set of goals and was ready to achieve them. Although Margo was a charter school director in an urban setting, she now wanted to change direction and become the leader of an organization involved in international education.

Before hiring me as her coach, Margo had checked out my credentials, spoken to a colleague she knew I had coached and questioned me thoroughly about my professional background and experiences. However, she had not asked me about my expertise in international education and companies involved in this specialty. To be honest, my knowledge base in this area was quite limited.

Yet, here we were in the middle of our initial coaching session when Margo asked me to give her advice about researching the field of international education. She was a bit surprised when I began to laugh and told her two things:

1. While I had expertise in a number of educational topics, international education was not one of them.
2. Even if I were a specialist in international education, my role as her coach would not be to advise her.

Of course, Margo wondered why her coach would not give her advice. I then explained that I was her thinking partner and would challenge and support her as she developed her own plan of research. If I had just supplied her with information that stood out in my mind, I would be doing Margo a disservice because I would not only be undermining her own excellent ability to think and find solutions, but also, I might limit her thinking about possibilities by influencing her to research only those areas about international education that I knew or thought appropriate.

Margo was disappointed at first that I did not give her direct information. She then asked me to explain what I meant when I said I would be her thinking partner rather than give her advice. My next response resulted in both of us laughing and provided her with an important “aha” moment!

I shared with Margo that I, too, had written a dissertation as part of the process for earning a doctorate. I clearly recalled that one of the five chapters of a dissertation describes all of the research to date about the dissertation topic. Surely Margo must be an excellent researcher to have completed her dissertation for such a prestigious university. Margo laughingly agreed, that indeed she was a very capable researcher and now she understood why it was important for her to investigate the field of international education rather than receive advice from me.

Our session ended with Margo excited and eager to begin her research as we wondered together what possibilities and opportunities she might discover. She left the call feeling confident in her own abilities and we both found ourselves looking forward to our next coaching conversation.

by Linda Gross, Ed.D, ACC
Coaching For Results Global