After publishing The Unfinished Foundations of Coaching, I shared it with members of our coaching and practitioner community. A number of reflections and questions followed, including from coaches currently undertaking the Thrive Coach Training Program.

These responses were welcome. The purpose of the first article was not to discredit the coaching profession, reject established competencies or position the Thrive Method of Coaching against the International Coaching Federation or other professional bodies. Coaching has benefited greatly from ethical codes, competency frameworks, credentialing pathways, supervision, professional boundaries and mechanisms of accountability. These developments have made the profession more recognisable, disciplined and trustworthy.

The concern raised in the first article was more specific. Professional standards can guide how a coach conducts themselves, but they do not necessarily provide a complete philosophy of the human being, sense-making, meaning, capacity, transformation or the legitimate participation of the coach. The article suggested that coaching has developed its professional form more fully than it has developed some of its philosophical and developmental foundations.

The reflections and questions that followed brought two tangible aspects of this concern into sharper focus.

The first concerned asymmetry within the coaching relationship, particularly when the coach possesses knowledge, training or access to a developmental instrument that the client does not possess in the same way. When a practitioner understands the architecture, distinctions and interpretive boundaries of an instrument more thoroughly than the person completing it, what does that asymmetry do to the distribution of power and authority within the engagement?

Some highly credentialed coaches suggest that assessments should be administered or interpreted by someone other than the practitioner conducting the coaching. Such separation may be appropriate in some contexts and may provide useful safeguards. Within Thrive, however, the Being Profile is not an isolated survey whose results are delivered before the real coaching begins. It is an ontometric developmental mirror situated within an ongoing process of enquiry, application, learning, refinement and stabilisation. Separating the Profile from the developmental relationship would not necessarily resolve the underlying question of power. It may simply relocate authority while interrupting the continuity through which what becomes visible can be examined, applied and developed into lived transformation.

The second concern extended beyond the use of assessments. It involved the tension between dominance and abdication in the coach’s participation. How can a coach deeply respect the client’s agency while also recognising and challenging its present limitations, particularly where the client’s sense-making has been inherited, conditioned or organised through structures they cannot yet perceive?

Established coaching competencies rightly require discipline, restraint, presence, respect and a serious commitment to the client’s autonomy. Yet some interpretations of those competencies can leave practitioners uncertain about how they may contribute knowledge, perception, interpretation or challenge without becoming overly directive. The desire to avoid domination may then produce another difficulty: the coach becomes so cautious about influencing the client that they withdraw from responsibilities that may legitimately belong to the role.

Together, these concerns raise a deeper question. How can the coach participate meaningfully without taking authorship of another person’s life, and how can they preserve client authorship without abandoning the client to the limits of their present sense-making?

This is not merely a question of choosing between asking and telling, or between remaining silent and offering an interpretation. It concerns the nature of power, authority, agency, competence and responsibility within the coaching relationship. It also concerns the formation of coaches who possess sufficient capacity to remain within this tension without resolving it prematurely through either control or withdrawal.

These are not objections to be defended against. They are serious developmental questions arising from practitioners attempting to honour two legitimate commitments: respect for the client’s authorship and responsibility for the quality of the coach’s participation.

This article continues the enquiry opened in The Unfinished Foundations of Coaching. It examines how a coach may contribute knowledge, perception, interpretation and challenge without displacing the client’s agency. It also examines the opposite danger: that in attempting to avoid domination, the coach may abdicate legitimate responsibility and leave the client enclosed within the very limitations that coaching is intended to help them encounter and develop beyond.

The Existence of Asymmetry Is Not Yet Domination

The practitioner using a developmental instrument will ordinarily know more about the instrument than the client. They may understand its construction, distinctions, applications and interpretive boundaries more thoroughly. When the Being Profile is involved, the practitioner is trained to understand the 31 Aspects of Being, the relationships among them and the ways in which qualities of Being may become diminished, distorted, disowned, underdeveloped or overextended.

An asymmetry of knowledge therefore exists. Yet asymmetry is not the same as domination, nor does it operate in only one direction. The practitioner may possess greater knowledge of the framework, but the client remains the primary authority on their own lived reality: their history, relationships, circumstances, meanings, commitments and experience. The practitioner knows the instrument in ways the client may not. The client knows their life in ways the practitioner cannot.

Neither form of knowledge is sufficient on its own. The practitioner’s understanding of the framework does not confer ownership over the client’s experience, while the client’s proximity to their own life does not mean that every pattern within it is already visible to them. Developmental enquiry depends upon bringing these two forms of knowledge into a disciplined relationship without allowing either to erase the other.

Human relationships frequently involve differences in knowledge, experience, responsibility and access. A teacher may know more about a field than a student. A lawyer may understand the relevant legal architecture more thoroughly than a client. A physician may possess medical knowledge unavailable to a patient. The presence of unequal knowledge does not establish unequal human worth, nor does it automatically authorise one participant to take ownership of another’s decisions.

The ethical question is therefore not whether asymmetry exists, but what becomes of it within the relationship. Does the practitioner’s knowledge become a contribution to enquiry or an instrument of interpretive control? Does it help the client perceive and examine their life more fully, or does it displace the client’s authority to determine what their experience means and what they will do with what becomes visible?

There Is No Power-Free Coaching Relationship

Power is often treated as though it enters coaching only when the coach gives advice, offers an interpretation or tells the client what to do. Yet influence is present long before any explicitly directive intervention occurs.

The coach influences what becomes discussable through the questions they ask. They influence what receives attention through what they pursue and what they leave unexplored. They influence the emotional environment through their presence, silence, reactions, concern and approval. They introduce distinctions through which the client may begin to interpret themselves and their circumstances differently.

Even a decision not to contribute an observation influences the engagement. Silence may create space for reflection, but it may also leave an important incoherence unexamined. A question may invite discovery, but it may also contain an assumption, direct attention towards a preferred conclusion or allow both participants to remain safely distant from what needs to be confronted.

There is no technique that is inherently free of power. Asking rather than telling does not, by itself, establish ethical alignment. An apparently open question can manipulate, while a transparent observation can liberate. Silence can be generous or avoidant. Directness can become domination or provide the clarity a situation requires.

Ethical practice cannot be secured by imagining that the coach can become power-free. The coach’s role inevitably carries influence, whether or not that influence is acknowledged. When it is denied, it does not disappear. It becomes concealed beneath technique, professional language or claims of neutrality.

The more responsible task is to make the coach’s influence visible, bounded, proportionate, challengeable and accountable.

Client Agency Is Not Client Omniscience

Respect for client agency is essential. Coaches should not colonise the client’s life, impose private ambitions or cultivate dependence upon the coach’s judgement. The client must remain the author of their choices and an active participant in the developmental enquiry.

Agency, however, should not be confused with complete self-knowledge.

Human beings do not construct themselves independently from the world they inherit. They participate through language, history, culture, relationships, institutions, earlier experiences and meanings they may not have consciously chosen. Their perception may be sincere while remaining incomplete. Their intentions may be genuine while being organised by inherited or borrowed meanings. Their account of a situation may feel self-evident because the structure through which it has become intelligible remains hidden.

This is one of the matters addressed through Metacontent and the Nested Theory of Sense-Making. Coaching cannot always remain at the level of what the client presently thinks. It may also need to examine the architecture through which that thought became meaningful, credible and apparently complete.

Capacity Discourse adds another difficulty. A person may lack not only the capacity to resolve a predicament, but also the capacity to perceive its structure adequately. This is part of the incapacity paradox: the very incapacity that makes transformation necessary may also prevent the person from recognising, choosing or sustaining the transformation available to them.

To respect agency is not to pretend that these limitations do not exist. Nor is it to affirm every interpretation because it belongs to the client. It is to recognise that the client remains a participant capable of developing greater perception, discernment, responsibility and capacity, while retaining authorship of the choices that follow.

The coach may contribute to what the client becomes able to see. The coach may introduce a distinction, challenge a premise, identify an incoherence or suggest that the client’s present interpretation does not adequately account for reality and consequence. What the coach cannot legitimately do is convert that contribution into ownership of the client’s life.

Client authorship does not require practitioner absence.

It requires practitioner participation that does not seize authorship.

The Coach’s Authority Is Real, but Bounded

The coach does possess a form of authority within the engagement. This authority arises from the agreed role, professional competence, methodological knowledge, developmental experience and responsibility through the coaching relationship.

It is not unlimited authority.

The coach does not possess unquestionable access to the truth of the client. They may misinterpret, oversimplify, project or become attached to a preferred conclusion. Their professional identity, fear of conflict, desire to rescue, need for admiration or discomfort with uncertainty may enter the engagement. The possibility that the coach can perceive something unavailable to the client must therefore be held alongside the possibility that the coach may be wrong.

Humility is indispensable, but humility should not be confused with pretending to possess no knowledge, perception or judgement. A coach can remain open to correction while contributing clearly. They can acknowledge uncertainty without retreating from responsibility. They can possess legitimate authority without treating themselves as the ultimate authority.

The relevant question is not simply how much authority the coach should have. It is what kind of authority legitimately belongs to the coach, how that authority should be exercised and what must discipline its use.

Within a responsible coaching relationship, the client retains authorship of their life and choices. The coach retains responsibility for the integrity, competence and proportionality of their participation. The agreed engagement establishes boundaries. The method provides a developmental architecture. Reality and consequence remain capable of correcting both participants.

These forms of authority are not identical, but they can be appropriately distributed.

The Being Profile as a Third Reference Point

The Being Profile should not be treated by the coach as an unquestionable source of truth, nor adopted by the client as a fixed identity. It is an instrument, not a verdict on the person and not the transformation itself.

The Profile introduces a third reference point into the developmental relationship. It contributes structured evidence concerning the client’s relationship with the Aspects of Being. The practitioner contributes methodological knowledge, interpretation and developmental judgement. The client contributes lived experience, context, recognition, disagreement and choice.

None of these sources should automatically overrule the others. Their value lies in what becomes possible when they are brought into disciplined dialogue.

The practitioner may understand the architecture of the Profile more deeply, while the client has access to a history and lived reality that the practitioner cannot possess and assume in the same manner. The Profile may reveal patterns that neither participant could identify with the same precision through conversation alone, while remaining limited in what it can establish. Reality and consequence remain capable of challenging the instrument, the practitioner’s interpretation and the client’s self-understanding.

Responsible use of the Profile therefore requires the practitioner to distinguish among what the instrument indicates, what they have directly observed, what they are interpreting and what remains an untested hypothesis. These categories should not be collapsed into one another.

The coach might say, in effect, “This is what the Profile appears to indicate. This is a possible indication. Let us examine where this is relevant to you and  is supported by your lived experience, participation and consequences.”

Such an approach does not deny the practitioner’s competence. It makes the use of that competence transparent and open to enquiry.

Having another practitioner administer or interpret an instrument may sometimes be appropriate. It can provide a safeguard, an additional perspective or a clearer separation of roles. It does not, however, eliminate power. It relocates authority to another practitioner and may fragment a developmental process that requires continuity and further discovery.

The deeper safeguard is not separation alone. It is the formation of practitioners capable of using an instrument without hiding behind it, overstating it or making the client dependent upon its conclusions.

Vulnerability Is Necessary but Not Sufficient

The vulnerability of the coach is important. A coach who cannot reveal uncertainty, receive challenge or acknowledge the limits of their perception is more likely to turn authority into domination.

Vulnerability alone, however, cannot resolve the problem.

A vulnerable coach can still dominate. They may disclose uncertainty while remaining attached to their conclusion. They may share personal experience in a manner that shifts emotional responsibility onto the client. They may speak openly about their limitations without becoming more capable of recognising when those limitations are shaping the engagement.

Vulnerability must therefore be accompanied by humility, courage, restraint, competence, discernment, care and a genuine willingness to be corrected. The coach must be able to recognise when they are rescuing, controlling, performing, avoiding or seeking validation. They must also possess enough stability to remain present when the client disagrees, resists, becomes disappointed or exposes an error in the coach’s interpretation.

The mature coach does not make themselves smaller to make the client larger. Nor do they enlarge themselves at the client’s expense. They develop the capacity to bring what they genuinely possess without overstating it, imposing it or withdrawing from it.

Dominance and Abdication

Dominance occurs when the coach takes responsibility that belongs to the client. The practitioner may turn interpretation into verdict, position disagreement as resistance, prescribe a preferred life or make the client progressively dependent upon the coach’s continuing approval and authority.

Abdication occurs when the coach refuses responsibility that belongs to the coach. The practitioner may withhold relevant perception to preserve an appearance of neutrality, hide behind questions when a transparent contribution is required or avoid challenging an incoherence because doing so may create discomfort or expose the coach to being wrong.

In dominance, the coach takes authorship away from the client. In abdication, the coach leaves the client enclosed within the very limitations that may have brought them to coaching.

Both failures can diminish capacity. One does so through dependence and compliance. The other does so through professionalised withdrawal.

Responsible participation is not a comfortable midpoint between the two. It cannot be calculated according to how much the coach speaks, how many questions they ask or what percentage of the conversation belongs to each participant. A coach may speak very little and still dominate through the assumptions embedded in their questions. Another may offer a substantial interpretation while preserving the client’s freedom and responsibility to examine, challenge and reject it.

The developmental and ethical quality of an intervention cannot be determined by its form alone. It depends upon its intention, legitimacy, transparency, proportionality and consequence.

What Responsible Participation Requires in Practice

Responsible participation begins by recognising that the coach is always participating. The question is whether that participation increases the client’s capacity for more reality-aligned, coherent and responsible participation or gradually substitutes the coach’s perception for the client’s developing discernment.

The coach should make clear whether they are offering an observation, interpretation, distinction, hypothesis, body of knowledge or invitation to experiment. They should avoid presenting a developmental proposition as an established fact when it remains open to examination. They should provide enough of the basis for their contribution that the client can engage with it rather than merely submit to it.

The client must be able to disagree without the disagreement being automatically interpreted as defensiveness or resistance. The coach should remain willing to revise their view and should actively examine whether their interpretation is supported by the client’s lived experience, the wider context and the consequences becoming visible through participation.

Responsible participation also requires attention to dependency. The purpose of coaching is not to make the client increasingly proficient at consulting the coach. It is to expand the client’s own capacity to perceive, discern, choose, act, learn and remain responsible in relation to reality.

The coach must also recognise the boundaries of legitimate competence. A more participatory approach does not authorise practitioners to provide therapy, medical treatment, legal advice, consulting or specialist intervention for which they are not qualified. Responsible authority is always limited by the nature of the engagement, the coach’s actual competence, the agreed boundaries and what the situation requires.

At times, responsible participation will take the form of silence or a question. At other times, it may require an observation, interpretation, distinction, challenge, experiment or relevant body of knowledge. No single intervention is inherently mature. The coach must discern what this client, this relationship and this developmental moment responsibly require.

The Capacity to Hold the Tension

Coaches need more capacity to hold the tension between dominance and abdication. But holding the tension should not be understood as passively tolerating uncertainty or remaining permanently undecided.

It is the capacity to contribute without controlling, remain humble without withdrawing and exercise judgement while staying open to correction. It requires the coach to preserve the client’s authorship while refusing to treat the client’s present sense-making as complete merely because it is sincerely held.

This capacity cannot be produced through technique alone. It depends upon what the coach has themselves become.

Can the coach remain present when their interpretation is rejected? Can they identify incoherence without humiliating the client? Can they challenge without coercing, care without carrying and contribute without taking over? Can they recognise where their own shadows, ambitions and limitations are entering the relationship? Can they encounter the limits of their competence without retreating behind professional identity?

These are not secondary questions concerning the personality of the practitioner. The developed capacity of the coach is one of the principal instruments of coaching.

Contribute Without Colonising

The unfinished foundations of coaching cannot be completed by replacing one rigid position with another. The answer to excessive non-directiveness is not a return to expert domination. The answer to practitioner authority is not the denial of client agency. The answer to the possibility that a coach may be wrong is not to require the coach to contribute nothing.

The deeper task is to develop forms of participation in which authority is legitimate, bounded and accountable, knowledge is offered without becoming supremacy and the client remains the author of their choices without being abandoned to the limits of their present perception.

The practitioner may know more about an instrument. The client may know more about their lived experience. The method may reveal structures that neither could perceive alone. Reality and consequence may correct all of them.

Responsible coaching holds these sources together without making any one of them absolute.

The coach must neither take possession of the client’s life nor pretend to possess nothing of value. They must learn to contribute without colonising, challenge without coercing, care without carrying and remain humble without withdrawing from responsibility.

This is not a departure from the ethical maturity coaching has already developed. It is an attempt to carry that maturity further.

The next development of coaching will not come from making the coach more powerful than the client or from attempting to make the coach powerless. It will come from forming coaches whose participation can be trusted because their authority is disciplined by competence, integrity, humility and their being.

That is the space between dominance and abdication.

It is also where responsible participation begins.