Autumn is meeting time for many as people return from holidays and begin to shape an agenda for the year ahead. Coaches are no exception. On the one hand, coaching clients return to coaching after their summer break. On the other hand, commissioning clients often ask to explore what role coaching can play in supporting the corporate agenda.

As I prepare for one such meeting, I am invited to share information in response to a range of questions. How do you work with clients? What are your aims and objectives? What is your coach training, knowledge and background? What arrangements do you have in place for your continuing professional development? What types of coaching intervention do you offer and to whom? How do you measure results? Can you share a typical coaching programme, including details of any questionnaires or tools you might use? Can you share your CV?

As I prepare my responses to these questions, I notice that I pause – only for a moment – before I share information about my personal development. What if I am judged on the basis of sharing this information? Still, I go ahead and write:

Alongside my professional formation I have also invested extensively in my own personal development throughout my career. As well as working with professional coaches I have also chosen at times to invest in therapeutic interventions including cognitive behavioural therapy and the physical therapy known as rolfing. My trainings in NLP and NVC have brought both personal growth and insights which inform my work as a professional coach, consultant and trainer.

I recognise the part of me that fears judgement. It is an old, old fear. I remember a period before I began to invest in my own learning in this way. This was a period in which I yearned to make this investment and yet was so fearful – what if I make this investment only to learn that I really am as flawed as others seem to be telling me I am? This was my greatest fear. This is the fear that still sits behind my fear of being judged by the people I have not yet met and who may become clients.

And yet I know how valuable these experiences have been to me and just how important they are to my work as an Executive Coach. For they give me something that the most effective leaders have in spades – the ability to stand back and observe myself, to notice my thoughts, feelings and emotions, to connect with my motivations in a given moment and to choose to respond to them in ways which serve me and those around me. For how can our leaders respond effectively in a given moment if they lack awareness of the choices they are already making, let alone of the wide range of choices available to them?

There’s more. For I draw on the depth of my own learning and experience when I ask questions of clients and make observations that open up new pathways for them. In the same way, the leader who has a deep self awareness is uniquely placed to coach those he or she leads. Though I am not a therapist, it comes as no surprise to me that some of the most effective coaches have a background as a therapist or experience of therapy as clients.

Perhaps, though, the most fundamental benefit I can offer to my clients based on my own experiences is this. For sometimes clients struggle in their current way of thinking, yearning to make changes and wondering if they will ever find a way to free themselves from the thrall of their habitual ways of thinking. Sometimes clients soar to reach new heights that they could not have believed possible and for which role models are few and wonder if they can make the journey. Sometimes they both struggle and soar. On these occasions I can come to coaching with a confidence that the journey they are setting out to make is possible for them. I can bring compassion for the journey. I can support them as they slow down to take just one step at a time.

For there is nothing to fear in supporting clients in their journey when your own journey has taught you that, yes, you can.