A client arrived at a recent coaching session with a noticeably different level of positive energy. Turns out, 48 hours earlier, she had resigned from her current role, having just accepted another senior role at an alliance partner. The new role is within the same industry, and she'll be working with people she "knew by reputation".

It had taken no time at all for the word to get out that she was joining the new organisation. Her connections began reaching out immediately with unsolicited, well-meaning opinions. Recommendations to align with certain people and to watch out for others. Information about where hidden tensions were likely to impact her new responsibilities. A heads up on what she is walking into. By the time we spoke, she had formed a detailed picture and had already started shaping her approach in response.

I asked her one question: how do you know you can rely on that information?

I knew by the pause that followed I'd hit a nerve.

As leaders, we’re involved in many conversations where our role is clear. The Board wants a recommendation, an investor wants an outcome, or the regulator wants an answer. We spend years building expertise to deliver those expectations. Those skills are real and valuable. In reality, most of our week doesn’t look or feel like that. It’s usually messier: strategy still forming, unclear problems emerge, forcing our teams and us to consider something new. In those conversations, the same frame that serves us in the boardroom can (quietly) work against us.

It’s not about having the answer.

The one place you don’t have to have the answer

At every level of leadership, there is an unspoken expectation: you are the person who brings clarity to the room.

Others come to us with problems, half-formed ideas, competing priorities. Our job is to receive all of that and return something useful, perhaps a direction, a decision, a pathway through. We do this all day, in every meeting, every conversation.

Which makes it harder to admit, or even recognise, that our own thinking is sometimes just as unresolved.

“Sorry, I’m a bit scattered today.”

“I’m jumping around all over the place.”

These are among the most consistent opening patterns in coaching sessions. Leaders join, take a breath, and apologise for the state of their thinking before they’ve said anything of substance.

The psychology of referral. Why our clients and friends bet their reputation on us