In this series, we take a closer look at each of the 12 Principles of Transformative Coaching that form the foundation of the Animas approach.
There’s a familiar idea in coaching that the client should lead. It reflects an important shift away from advice-giving and from positioning the coach as the expert. But taken too literally, this can create its own limitations. If the coach simply follows wherever the client chooses to go, asks questions without contributing their own observations and avoids influencing the process in any way, we might reasonably ask what the coach is bringing to the conversation. The collaborative principle offers a more nuanced way of thinking about this.
In transformative coaching, neither coach nor client is solely responsible for directing the conversation. The process is co-created. Both participate in shaping what is explored and how it is explored, while the client’s autonomy and authority over their own experience remain central. This means coaching is not something we do to a client, but nor is it something the coach simply stands back and allows to happen. It’s something we do with them.
Sharing responsibility for the process
Clients don’t necessarily arrive in coaching knowing how best to use the space.
They may know what they want to talk about, but what they are less likely to know is whether it would be useful to examine an assumption, stay with a particular feeling, explore a contradiction, or move away from the original topic altogether. The coach brings experience of facilitating this kind of inquiry, and collaboration allows that experience to enter the conversation without turning it into leading.
A coach might notice that something has shifted as the client talks. They might wonder about a connection between two things the client has said, or feel that the conversation is moving quickly past something which may be significant. A collaborative coach doesn’t have to suppress these observations in order to remain client-centred.
There’s a considerable difference between telling someone what you believe is happening and offering something you have noticed for them to consider. The first implicitly gives greater authority to the coach’s interpretation. The second adds another perspective to an inquiry that still belongs to the client.
The coach might ask whether the client would like to hear an observation, share it tentatively and then allow the client to decide whether it has any relevance. They might be interested in it, reject it completely or find that it prompts an entirely different line of thought. Collaboration requires the coach to contribute without becoming attached to their contribution being right.
Holding our ideas lightly
This ability to hold our ideas lightly is an important part of collaborative coaching.
Coaches inevitably have thoughts about what they hear. We notice patterns, make connections and form hypotheses. Experience may make us better at noticing things that could be significant. The danger comes when we begin to give our thoughts more authority than the client’s own experience.
An observation can turn into an interpretation. A question can become a way of steering the client towards something we’ve already decided is relevant. But when we say “This is something I’m noticing. What do you make of it?” That creates a very different dynamic from presenting an insight for the client to accept.
The distinction can appear small, but it helps preserve something fundamental to transformative coaching: the client remains the person who ultimately makes meaning from their own experience.
Collaborating on how we work
Collaboration also means involving the client in decisions about the coaching process itself, which can happen throughout a session.
We might check whether a particular direction still feels useful, ask whether the client wants to stay with something or move on, or discuss what kind of exploration would be most helpful at that point.
A coach can easily assume responsibility for keeping the conversation moving. We think about what question should come next, whether enough time has been spent on a topic and what direction might produce the most useful outcome. With collaboration, those decisions are shared, ensuring that the conversation continues to be in service of the client.
Ownership and autonomy
One of the most important consequences of collaboration is the client’s sense of ownership. There’s a difference between arriving at an insight because somebody has led us towards it and arriving somewhere through an exploration in which we have been an active participant.
This matters particularly in transformative coaching because we are often exploring questions for which there is no objectively correct answer. The work may concern identity, values, relationships, beliefs or how someone wants to live. A coach can help create conditions for that exploration, but they cannot determine what the client’s conclusions should be.
The process needs to leave the client with greater ownership of their meaning and choices, not dependence on the coach’s judgement or guidance.
A process that can respond to what emerges
Collaboration allows coaching to remain flexible. A conversation may begin with a clear intention and then reveal something neither person anticipated. A question may lead somewhere unexpected. Something that initially appeared central may lose its importance as another concern comes into view.
This is where collaboration connects naturally with emergence. We don’t need to know exactly where a session is going in order for it to be purposeful. Ultimately, the collaborative principle recognises that transformative coaching is a shared endeavour.
The client brings an authority that the coach can never have: their experience of being themselves and living their life. The coach brings a different kind of experience: the ability to facilitate reflection, notice what is happening in the conversation and support deeper inquiry. Through this collaboration, the coaching becomes a process that coach and client actively create together.
