The Final Moments of Executive Coaching

In recent months, I have found myself noticing how the final moments of a coaching conversation provide a space for joint reflection and critical insights for both myself as the coach and for my client which continue after the coaching session is complete.

My dear friend and fellow executive coach Marc Gaudart has extensively researched and frequently speaks about what happens in the first moments of a coaching conversation that enables the client and coach to be ‘unique in all the world’. Marc encourages his fellow coaches to be curious about what happens during their first moments; from coach and client as independent beings with their thoughts and feelings, to being a coach and client in a working relationship.

Research into executive coaching has focussed on specific instances or critical moments in executive coaching. De Haan (2019) defines critical moments in executive coaching as the moments where positive change occurs. The coaching relationship has to hold sufficient mutual trust for the coach’s intuition to emerge and to come up with fresh observations and perspectives.

My clients reveal a lot of themselves during any coaching, and as the time for coaching draws to a close, I find myself reflecting and ensuring that my clients are in a healthy place for the coaching to finish. I check how I am feeling, what’s been discussed, what is unfinished, what is sitting uncomfortably, what needs to be reviewed or finished in the present coaching, and what can remain unsaid. I use the final moments to reflect with my client on what they client have revealed of themselves and the journey the coaching session has taken, where they disclosed and where have they held back, and form agreements, commitments, or contracts about what has been critical in the present coaching and what can wait until we meet again.

As a coach I have the desire to help, I observe that the final few moments of coaching sessions are a valuable time to take a moment of joint reflection with my client.

A client expects to be helped and expects the executive coach to bring value; the coach brings supported thinking and often intuition to the coaching relationship. For me as a coach, the final moments provide a moment to reflect on what have been the critical moments in the coaching, to reflect on what has helped, and what will we jointly hold for future coaching.

To discover more about why executive coaching, read my article here.