Why Trust Is a Coach's Most Powerful Tool

WHY do we listen to coaches? We know that great coaching leads to performance development and can transform individuals and organizations. But what gives coaches power and influence, especially when they are hired outside of the organization? If you’re interested in becoming a coach or hiring one, this is critical for you to understand.

The role as a coach ultimately comes down to building trust. You can’t influence a coachee who doesn’t trust you. Authority and expertise play a role in coaching, but as the relationship evolves, it’s trust that enables long-term impact. That’s why it’s critical you build that trust quickly so you can get to work.

The quickest way to build that trust is by showing the person that you care about them, that you’re listening, and that you’re genuinely on their team. It’s not just about whatever the organization hired you to address. It’s I care about you as a person, and I’m here to help you succeed. The role of a coach begins with establishing psychological safety – safety that allows the coachee to share the real details and vulnerabilities behind the situation. You have to say it and show it.

That trust is built, in large part through clarity of intent. Coachees are constantly subconsciously asking, Is this person really for me? The most effective coaches make that answer unmistakable: I’m here to help you have a better life. Not just better results. Not just better performance. A better life. And when that intent is clear, the relationship becomes more personal, the work goes deeper, and your influence expands exponentially. That’s when people are truly willing to examine blind spots, confront uncomfortable truths, and try behaviors that initially feel risky. Referent power takes time to build and very little time to lose. But when it’s present, it becomes the most durable and influential form of power a coach can have.

For coaches’ who focus on a whole-person perspective, leadership performance can’t be separated neatly from the rest of someone’s life. Personal pressures, relationships, health, and stress inevitably influence how a leader shows up at work, and meaningful coaching has to take that full picture into account.

We’re not suggesting you take on the role of a therapist or counselor – this is still in the context of work – but it’s important to recognize that people aren’t compartmentalized. Everything overlaps. What gets triggered at work often starts somewhere else. They dynamics that show up in meetings or with colleagues are often tied to what’s happening at home, in their emotional lives, under their stress load, or in their relationships.

When a coach creates an environment of trust and safety, they can help uncover the roots of these issues. Sometimes a behavior like defensiveness is tied to something completely unrelated to the workplace, such as the pressure of being a single parent or the fear of financial instability. A context always exists. Asking thoughtful questions to surface that context isn’t a bad technique. In fact, it’s essential. But insight alone isn’t the goal. The questions need to lead you somewhere. What you uncover should inform how you show up next, whether that means providing more structure, more encouragement, more challenge, or more autonomy. Diagnosis without a corresponding shift in coaching style may feel empathetic, but it won’t move performance.

This is why the role of the coach is to know who you’re coaching. You need to know the person well enough to connect dots they might not see and to keep the goal front and center no matter what conversation you’re having. You may be talking about someone’s spouse, but what you’re really working toward is helping that person face conflict at work with more confidence. That’s the through line. When you understand who they are as a whole person, you can speak to their motivators, their well-being, and their priorities – inside and outside of work.

This builds a foundation of trust that then sustains and fuels the work over time. When people trust you, they speak more openly about where they’re struggling. They’re less guarded and you see their actual level of ability and willingness for their work instead of a polished version of it. That trust also gives people the courage to stretch beyond their comfort zones. It allows them to receive direct, sometimes uncomfortable feedback without shutting down. Instead of triggering defensiveness, these moments become transformational. The person across from you knows that you’re in their corner, that your candor and challenge ultimately serve their growth.

As organizations flatten and traditional hierarchies loosen, coaching is becoming more central to how people grow, make decisions, and stay grounded in their work. It’s becoming more central to organizational success too. While the focus may be on someone’s professional life, the impact doesn’t stay contained there. How people show up at work influences how they show up everywhere: at home, in relationships, in how they carry themselves day-to-day.

Influencing people, advising them, and walking alongside them through pivotal movements in their careers creates a ripple effect that extends far beyond the workplace. At its core the work is simple. We’re helping the person in front of us have a better life. As the profession continues to expand, the responsibility expands with it. The question is, Will the quality of coaching grow with it?

As a coaching community, it’s imperative that we slow down enough to learn the tools, clarify our approach, and get grounded in how we intentionally show up: how we listen, how we influence, and how we match what people need in the moment. That requires really seeing the person across the table. Understanding where they’re coming from, what they need and how they need it.

That’s the reality we’re operating in. No matter the level, position, or title of the coachee, people are facing tremendous pressure. Expectations in the workplace continue to rise as technology evolves and productivity demands increase. At the same time, they’re balancing pressures at home such as raising children, caring for aging parents, or contributing to their communities. This is all important work.

And we, as coaches, have the incredible privilege of sitting across from them, holding space, listening, observing, assessing, diagnosing, and ultimately meeting them in a way that reconnects them to their purpose, fuels their passion and helps them become better leaders, better team members, and better humans.

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Excerpted from Match: The Situational Coaching® Approach to Meeting Leaders Where They Are by Suzie Bishop and Marshall Goldsmith. Used with permission of the publisher, 100 Coaches Publishing. Copyright © 2026 Leadership Studies, Inc.

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Suzie Bishop is the Vice President of Product Development at The Center for Leadership Studies, the global home of the Situational Leadership® Model, which is the most successful and widely adopted leadership framework available worldwide. As an established leader and presenter in the field of leadership development, Suzie drives innovative, experiential learning solutions to better equip leaders for the modern workplace.

Marshall Goldsmith is a renowned executive coach and author, known for his bestselling books such as What Got You Here Won’t Get You There and The Earned Life. He has written over thirty-one books that have been translated into thirty-six languages and has been recognized as the #1 leadership thinker in the world.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:29 AM
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