Coaching practice
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8 min read
Key findings
Hawkins describes coaching as a way of outsourcing difficult conversations, passed from the manager to HR and from HR to a coach.
Foy warns that coaches get drawn into performance managing by proxy for managers who evade their own responsibility.
Rogers advises asking the requesting manager how frank they have been with the person, because true candour is rare.
Whitmore's test favours telling when time dominates and coaching when quality, learning, buy-in or retention matters most.
A manager can coach and performance manage the same person, in separate conversations, with the standard stated first.
A manager who cannot say when the conversation took place has not had it.
Coaching is not appropriate when the manager has an undelivered message or has already decided the outcome. It is the wrong tool when the cause is structural or one of workload, or when the distress is clinical. Four questions put to the requesting manager settle most cases in ten minutes.
The request usually arrives as a manager's problem with a direct report, phrased as a wish for coaching.
Hawkins recalls describing coaching as a way of outsourcing difficult conversations.
In his account, the manager rings HR rather than deal with the difficulty, and HR calls a coach rather than deal with the person.
The internal practitioner sits in the middle of that chain, and accepting the request makes the practitioner part of it.
This guide sets out the tests that sort the requests, the words to decline, and the cases where coaching still pays.
The Four Conditions
Coaching needs four conditions, and where any is missing the intervention is something else under the label.
The person wants something to change
The change is within their control
No decision about the person has been taken without telling them
The coach has no stake in the outcome
The third condition produces the worst outcomes, because the person is coached toward a conclusion reached elsewhere.
Foy describes how coaches are drawn into performance managing by proxy for managers who evade their responsibility.
The University of Virginia states that its internal coaching is the leader's own choice and is not punitive.
Rogers adds that coachability depends on how coaching is regarded in the organisation, who the sponsor is, what motivates the sponsor, and what triggered the request.
Seven Requests That Are Not Coaching
Seven requests recur, and each has a better alternative.
The Undelivered Message. The manager holds a judgement they have not stated and wants it to arrive indirectly. Prepare the manager for the conversation, using difficult conversations at work, rather than hold it for them.
The Documented Exit. Coaching is offered as the supportive step before a process that is already decided. Where the decision exists, saying so is a service to the person, and declining is the defensible response. The conversation then belongs to the exit process, covered in redundancy conversations done properly.
The Structural Problem. Two roles overlap, accountability is unclear, and the friction is treated as a relationship issue. Where the working relationship itself is the problem, Rogers offers a joint meeting for the pair, led by the coach, as an alternative to coaching one of them.
The Capacity Problem. A person is failing because the work exceeds the hours. Name the arithmetic and send it back to whoever set the workload.
The Skills Gap. A person lacks knowledge or a technical skill the role requires. Instruction comes first, and coaching helps afterwards with applying it.
The Wrong Role. The person keeps failing and is unhappy in the job, even after coaching. Kumeria of ActionCOACH UK locates the problem in the fit between person and role and suggests finding a role where their strengths count, which is a placement conversation.
The Clinical Situation. Distress persists outside the conversation, or the person cannot manage ordinary work. It needs a referral and a boundary.
The Screening Conversation
Four questions asked of the requesting manager settle most cases in ten minutes.
What have you already said to them directly
What decision have you taken about them
What would change if this went well
What will you do differently yourself
Rogers advises asking the boss how frank they have been with the person, and observes that true candour is remarkably rare.
She also asks what will have changed for the boss if the coaching succeeds, and how success will be evaluated.
The evidence standard is a dated, specific answer.
Accept the date of the last conversation, the words used, the written standard and the record of any decision.
A manager who cannot say when the conversation took place has not had it.
A one-page note of the four answers, dated and sent to the manager, records the decision to accept or decline.
The note protects the practitioner if the request later escalates.
The fourth question predicts the outcome.
A manager who will change nothing in their own behaviour has asked for the person to adapt to an unchanged situation.
Each answer points to an action.
The message has not been said, so prepare the manager and defer coaching
A decision is already taken, so decline and say why
The standard is stated and the person is willing, so offer coaching toward it
The manager will change something too, so accept with a three-way contract
Coachability Levels
Rogers adapts a five-level framework from Bluckert that rates psychological problems, interpersonal problems, colleagues' perceptions, threat of derailment, performance issues and motivation.
The levels run from excellent through good, average and poor to an inappropriate intervention right now.
At the poor level, coaching may be the person's last chance to keep the job.
Rogers says it is then essential to clarify that the organisation genuinely believes the person is coachable.
At the inappropriate level, the person has serious psychological or medical problems and colleagues do not want to work with them.
Rogers warns of organisations covering themselves by seeming to offer help when they are planning to dismiss the person.
She also advises never being afraid to refuse the assignment, since a sponsor will first blame the coach and then blame coaching itself.
Kumeria adds that leaders who consistently blame others for poor results are rarely ready, because coaching depends on self-reflection.
Declining Without Damage
Refusing a manager is where practitioners lose their nerve, and four parts make it workable.
Name their problem accurately, in their words, so they know they were heard
Say what coaching would and would not produce here
Offer the alternative, usually preparation, a conversation structure or a decision
Say what you will do, so the refusal comes with work attached
For the undelivered message, the sentence is: I will not coach him into hearing something you have not said, and I will help you say it this week.
Rogers warns of organisations that cover themselves by offering coaching to a person they are already planning to dismiss.
Coaching And Performance Management
Performance management states a standard, names the gap and sets a consequence.
Coaching explores how the person sees the situation and what they will do.
A manager can do both, and not in the same conversation.
Three rules keep them separate.
State the standard first, in its own conversation, with a record
Offer coaching afterwards, as support toward a stated requirement
Never let the coaching substitute for the record
A person who was coached but never told will be surprised by the outcome.
The CIPD coaching and mentoring factsheet, dated August 2025, raises concern about managers coaching their own staff, given the power relationship and the need for impartiality.
Coaching inside a line role covers that dual role.
When The Coach Has A Stake
An internal practitioner frequently has a stake, and the stake is rarely disclosed.
Three situations require it.
The coach will assess, select or calibrate the person
The outcome affects the coach's own function or budget
The coach has already formed a view that the person should move on
The 2025 revision of the ICF Code of Ethics requires professionals to disclose when they hold more than one role with a coachee.
Erickson Coaching International reported the change in July 2025, with the example of coaching a manager while training that manager's direct reports.
In each situation the honest move is to decline or to disclose, and disclosure works only where the client can genuinely refuse.
The pool rules in building an internal coaching pool apply the same test at programme level.
The Sponsor Who Insists
Sometimes the request comes with authority attached, and declining is not straightforward.
Three positions are available, in escalating order.
Reframe the work, accepting a version that addresses the real problem
Accept with a stated limit, including what you will not do and what you will report
Decline and say in writing what you will do instead
The middle position, with a written limit, protects the person being coached.
Foy recommends insisting on a pre-coaching conversation with the sponsor or manager, which brings expectations into the open.
It also discourages off the record discussions about the person without their knowledge.
She suggests agreeing in advance what happens if the coaching leads the employee to decide to leave.
Clinical Situations
Rogers lists indicators of therapeutic territory.
They include recurring serious self-esteem issues, a bereavement never worked through, symptoms of anxiety, panic or depression that intrude on everyday life, and substance misuse.
The more of them present, the more likely the person needs therapy, and she names the coach's own sense of being out of their depth as the most important indicator.
Clients for therapy are far more likely than clients for coaching to be in a persistently distressed and disabling state, in Rogers' account.
A decision guide published by Noomii in July 2026 offers a simpler test, which is whether the difficulty stops the person handling basic work or personal responsibilities.
The referral conversation follows Rogers' steps.
Tell the person you are at the limits of your skills, and avoid appearing to blame them.
Explain the difference between therapy and coaching, ask for their reaction, and copy any referral letter to them.
In an organisation with an employee assistance programme, that is the usual route.
An internal coach holding a clinical situation is exposed, and so is the person.
Telling And Coaching
Whitmore gives leaders a test for when to coach and when to tell.
If time dominates, as in a crisis, telling is fastest, though it saves time only in the short term and creates dependency in the long term.
If the quality of the result matters most, if learning is the point, if buy-in is needed, or if engagement and retention are at stake, coaching delivers more.
He adds that time pressure and fear outrank employee development when leaders choose how to behave in the moment.
A practitioner can use the list in both directions.
It justifies coaching where the conditions hold and telling where they do not.
The Cost Of Always Agreeing
A practitioner who accepts every coaching request pays three prices.
Capacity goes first, since these conversations are the most time-expensive work a function does.
Credibility follows, because some of the engagements visibly fail to change anything.
Standing erodes last, as managers learn that difficult conversations can be passed to HR and then pass every one of them.
A Worked Request
Four roles are involved.
They are a regional sales director, a team leader whose reports are late, an HR business partner and the team leader's own team.
On Monday, the sales director asks the HR business partner to coach the team leader.
On Monday afternoon, the partner asks the four questions and learns that the director has not raised the lateness directly or decided anything about the role.
On Tuesday, the partner declines to coach and offers a preparation session.
On Wednesday, the director writes the standard and a review date.
On the following Monday, the director holds the conversation, and the partner offers coaching toward the stated standard.
At week six, the director reviews against the written standard, and the coaching continues or ends on that evidence.
Where The Tools Sit
In Trusted Talent Advisor, the boundary between coaching and directing sits in component 02, The Stakeholder Conversation Toolkit.
The diagnostic that separates a capability gap from a conditions problem is in component 01, The Core Practitioner Guide.
The Talent Template Pack includes the coaching contract and the conversation preparation canvas.
Sources
1. Rogers, J. Coaching Skills: A Handbook. Open University Press, 2008.
2. Foy, K. Contracting in Coaching, in Passmore, J. (ed.), The Coaches' Handbook. Routledge, 2021.
3. Hawkins, P. and Turner, E. Systemic Coaching: Delivering Value Beyond the Individual. Routledge.
4. Whitmore, J. Coaching for Performance. Nicholas Brealey, 2017.
5. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Coaching and Mentoring Factsheet, page dated 11 August 2025.
6. Erickson Coaching International. What Is New in the 2025 ICF Code of Ethics, 29 July 2025.
7. Markland, D. When You Need Therapy, Not Coaching: A Decision Guide. Noomii, 31 July 2026.
8. Kumeria, V. When Is Coaching Not the Right Solution? ActionCOACH UK, 6 August 2019.
9. University of Virginia Human Resources. Internal Coaching for Leaders, service page, read October 2026.
From the system
Trusted Talent Advisor sets out the full method: seven components, 51 tools, The Talent Template Pack and The Prompt Library.
See the system
Questions this answers
When is coaching not appropriate?
When the manager has an undelivered message, when a decision about the person is already taken, when the problem is structural or one of workload, when the person lacks a skill the role requires, and when the distress is clinical.
Should you coach an underperforming employee or put them on a performance plan?
Start with the standard. State it, name the gap and record it in a performance conversation. Coaching can follow as support toward that stated requirement. A person who was coached but never told will be surprised by the outcome.
Can coaching be used as part of a performance improvement plan?
Yes, as support inside a plan whose standard, gap and consequence have been stated and recorded in a separate conversation. It cannot replace the record, and the coach must have no role in assessing the outcome.
When should you refer a coachee to therapy?
When the difficulty stops the person handling ordinary work or personal responsibilities, when distress persists outside sessions, or when the coach feels out of their depth. Say you are at the limit of your skills and avoid blaming the person.
How do you say no to a coaching request?
Name the manager's problem in their words, say what coaching would and would not produce, offer the alternative, and say what you will do. Preparation for the conversation they are avoiding is the most common alternative.
What predicts whether coaching will help?
Whether the person wants change, controls it, faces no hidden decision and has a coach with no stake. The requesting manager's answer to what they will do differently themselves is the best single predictor.
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