I am a better person because I am a coach.

That sentence could sound self-congratulatory, so let me explain.

I do not mean that becoming a coach made me more impressive than other people. I mean that the practices of coaching have worked on me over time.

I became a coach because I wanted to help other people grow. I wanted to listen well, ask useful questions, and help people move forward. What I did not expect was that years of listening before speaking, asking instead of advising, and refusing to take over another person’s responsibility would change me.

We talk regularly about the benefits of coaching for the person being coached. We talk about increased awareness, clearer decisions, stronger accountability, and better results.

But what happens to the coach?

For me, coaching has changed how I understand community, how I steward my own awareness, and how I carry responsibility.

Coaching changed how I understand community

Coaching taught me that growth is not merely something that happens inside an individual. It is often something people create together.

I was raised in a Christian tradition that strongly emphasized the need for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I still believe that matters. Faith cannot simply be inherited from your parents or borrowed from your pastor.

But Christianity is also deeply communal. The New Testament describes the church as the body of Christ. One person is a hand. Another is a foot. Another is an eye. Christ is the head, and the whole body is joined together.

Coaching has helped me understand that more practically.

In a coaching conversation, the coach and the client have different responsibilities. The client is the expert on the topic. The coach is responsible for the process. The coach listens, notices, asks questions, and creates space for thought. The client decides what matters and what action to take.

Neither person creates the result alone.

I experienced this repeatedly in my work with Chad Hall. We would develop an idea, a model, or a way of explaining something, and later I often could not remember which part came from him and which part came from me.

It felt like ours.

That was new for me. I was accustomed to thinking of ideas as belonging to an individual. Either I created it or you did. But sometimes an idea emerges between people. The relationship produces something neither person would have created independently.

Coaching has made me less interested in proving which idea is mine and more interested in discovering what we can create together.

Coaching changed how I steward my awareness

Coaching taught me that I do not have to say everything I see, and that some awareness is meant to form me before it informs someone else.

This has not come naturally to me.

I tend to notice connections. I hear someone talking, and an idea forms in my mind. I see what may be missing. I recognize a pattern. I think I know the next step.

And then I want to share it.

One of the ongoing temptations of coaching is the desire to tell the client what I have noticed. Sometimes the insight may even be good.

But coaching has taught me to pause.

Does this need to be said?

Does it need to be said by me?

Does it need to be said now?

That pause has changed more than my coaching. It has changed how I teach, lead meetings, interact with my family, and respond when someone says something I think is incorrect.

What has surprised me is that the awareness does not rot on the vine.

I once assumed an insight was valuable only if I gave it away. If I saw something and shared it, perhaps the other person would grow. If I did not share it, the opportunity had been wasted.

I no longer believe that.

Sometimes an insight I do not share stays with me. It combines with another thought. It raises a question. It exposes something in my own character. It deepens instead of disappearing.

If I immediately share everything I notice, the insight may leave me almost as quickly as it came. But when I hold it, it may continue to work on me.

This does not mean silence is always virtuous. There are times to teach, warn, correct, or offer an observation. Coaching has not made me passive.

It has made me more intentional.

Coaching changed how I carry responsibility

Coaching taught me that being responsible does not mean taking responsibility that properly belongs to someone else.

Responsibility has always been one of my strengths. If you give me something to do, I will probably do it. I will follow through and make sure the work is completed.

That is generally a good quality.

But every strength has an overuse.

Responsibility can become control. It can become rescuing. It can become conflict avoidance. It can become a kind of messiah complex in which I assume everything will fall apart unless I step in and carry it.

Sometimes I have taken responsibility simply because it seemed easier than asking someone else to take theirs.

I can solve the problem faster. I can complete the task correctly. I can avoid an uncomfortable conversation.

But taking over another person’s responsibility may solve the immediate problem while preventing that person from growing.

Coaching has taught me to ask different questions.

What is actually mine to carry?

What belongs to the other person?

How can I help without taking over?

Sometimes the most helpful thing I can do is sit beside someone while they face something difficult. I can listen, help them think, and encourage them to do what they already know they need to do.

My presence may be useful without my becoming responsible for the outcome.

This has changed my leadership. Before coaching, I was often inclined to solve the problem myself. Now I am more likely to ask who needs to take ownership, what conversation is being avoided, and what capacity needs to be developed.

Coaching has not made me less responsible. It has made me more discerning about which responsibilities are actually mine.

 

I am not always a coach.

There are times when I need to give direction, teach, make a decision, correct an error, or take full responsibility for what happens next.

But the posture of coaching has changed how I inhabit all of those roles.

It has made me more collaborative because I no longer assume the best result must come from me.

It has made me more reflective because I no longer assume every insight must be spoken.

It has made me more appropriately responsible because I no longer assume every problem must become mine.

The habits I learned to help other people grow have gradually made me a better leader, husband, father, friend, and Christian.

My Christian faith has shaped the way I coach. But coaching has also shaped the way I understand and practice my Christian faith. It has helped me see the body of Christ more clearly, practice humility with my own awareness, and understand the difference between loving someone and taking over their life.

I started coaching because I wanted to help people become more fully who God created them to be.

I did not realize that, in the process, God would use coaching to do the same work in me.