Clients' critical moments of coaching: Toward a "client model" of executive coaching

Sixty-seven past and present clients of executive coaching wrote to us about the critical moments they experienced, and we interviewed eight of these. Our analysis indicates that for clients critical moments are not obviously essential to all good coaching. When critical moments do occur, they are positive and linked with important outcomes for clients, unless clients had been provoked by what they see as unhelpful or insensitive actions by coaches. Critical moments frequently appear to involve new realizations, evidenced both by explicit reference and by metaphors used. We explore what these findings indicate about clients' experiences of executive coaching, and we propose a new model of coaching based on the client's perspective.