There are certain things that seem to appear everywhere almost overnight.
Matcha is one of them.
Suddenly it was in our lattes, our desserts, our skincare and, if social media was to be believed, practically every corner of our lives. And now, as I’m writing this, I’m starting to hear the rumblings in the other direction - perhaps matcha isn’t quite the miracle drink it was once made out to be. Questions about caffeine, contaminants and how much of its supposed health halo is actually supported by evidence, are beginning to enter the conversation.
Perhaps that is the natural cycle of a trend.
First we discover something.
Then we fall in love with it.
Then we start to question it.
And eventually, we figure out what it actually is, what it can do, and what it can’t.
Which brings me to coaching.
Because coaching sometimes seems to be going through a similar moment. The word is everywhere. Executive coaching. Leadership coaching. Career coaching. Life coaching. Wellness coaching. Performance coaching. And inevitably someone asks:
“Is coaching actually useful — or is this just another trend?”
It is a fair question.
There are certainly things about the coaching industry that deserve scrutiny. The word “coach” is used very broadly. The quality of training varies. Some people make promises that coaching cannot reasonably deliver. And the explosion of coaching on social media can sometimes make a serious professional discipline look like a collection of inspirational quotes, morning routines and beautifully packaged self- discovery.
Was I really doing enough? Was I capable of this? And rather extreme - Was Icompletely useless?I don’t remember anyone sitting me down and telling me that I wasn’t good enough.It didn’t need to be said. Sometimes people communicate far more through a look, a gesture or a reactionthan they ever could with words.I became defensive. Most of the time, I think I wore it quite well.There was a show of nonchalance whenever a look or a comment landed. Asthough it didn’t matter. As though I hadn’t noticed.
But I had.
Looking back, I can see that the person I was becoming at work wasn’t really who Iwas.I wasn’t naturally defensive. I wasn’t someone who wanted to walk into a roomwondering what people thought of me or whether I had done something wrong.But when you constantly feel that you are being judged, you start protecting yourself.And sometimes protection doesn’t look like vulnerability.
It looks like indifference.
It looks like confidence when you’re actually uncertain.
It looks like pushing back when what you really want is to be understood.
It looks like saying, “I don’t care,” when you care very much.
Perhaps one of the best things to have come out of that experience, though, wasthat I worked incredibly hard to prove that I was worth my cost.I wanted the work to speak for itself.Feedback from the clients I dealt with mattered enormously to me. So did the way Iapproached my work.I took time over weekends to learn the job, to understand the things I didn’t yetknow and to become better at what I had been given the opportunity to do.And somewhere along the way, I also learned that you don’t have to do everythingalone. I sought out supportive colleagues who helped me understand the role. Some ofthose people became some of the best friends I have made at work. More than that,many of them still are today.That experience definitely influenced the kind of leader I became. I learned to bekind without being a pushover. That distinction became important to me.I learned that you can have high expectations of people and still care about them.You can hold someone accountable without making them feel small. You canchallenge someone without making them feel that they have failed.Perhaps more importantly, I started paying attention to what might be happeningbeyond the desk.
Who was struggling but wasn’t saying so?
Who needed just a little bit of support?
Who had something going on in their personal life that was affecting how theyshowed up at work?I didn’t always get it right, but I became much more conscious of looking beyond thework in front of me and seeing the person doing it.And then there were the people who were capable of so much more but simplyweren’t being given the opportunity to stretch.I became fascinated by those people.Sometimes capability isn’t obvious because confidence isn’t there. Sometimessomeone has never been given the chance to try. Sometimes people become soaccustomed to being overlooked that they stop putting their hand up.I wanted to notice them.I wanted to give people opportunities that someone had once given me. Because Iknew what it felt like to be underestimated.Looking back at my time as a leader, there was a person who wasn’t part of myteam and was on a performance improvement plan, it seemed like a routine issue.I saw something else. A person who looked like he had lost his spark.And for some reason, I had a feeling about him.I was moving on from the role I was in, and I remember thinking that he could be agreat successor.
It probably didn’t make much sense to everyone else. After all, he was on aperformance improvement plan. Why would I see him as someone with the potentialto step into my role?
But I wasn’t looking only at what had happened. I was looking at the personunderneath it.So one day I simply went up to him and asked whether he thought the role I wasdoing was interesting at all.He thought it was great.He liked that it involved dealing with people and said that the satisfaction of seeinga happy client must be such a fulfilling experience.I agreed with him.Then I asked him if he would like to shadow me for a while and see whether it wassomething he might like to take on at some point.He hesitated.So I told him there was no pressure. I would give him the time he needed to thinkabout it
And I did.
By the following week, I was almost convinced that he had abandoned the ideacompletely. I couldn’t fault him if he had.It was potentially an overwhelming responsibility, particularly at a time when hisconfidence had clearly taken a knock. He had also been considering moving into adifferent role in another team.So it was a very pleasant surprise when he came to see me.He had made his decision.He told me that, in the end, it was a “no brainer” to work with a person who wantedto support him.
I remember that.
Not because I thought I had done something extraordinary. But because I realizedthat sometimes people don’t need someone to fix them.Sometimes they simply need someone to see something in them that they havetemporarily stopped seeing in themselves—and then give them the space andsupport to decide what they want to do with it.More than a decade later, I spoke to him again.He has moved from strength to strength. His career has reached a point where heisn’t looking for more. He isn’t chasing the next title or the next promotion. He hasreached the pinnacle of seniority in his career, and what seems to matter to himnow is simply to be.
To be present.
To give his best to the family he adores.
To do his work well.
To live a good life.
And the thing that struck me most was that he was still the same person underneath it all.
Warm.
Sensitive.
Genuinely kind.
The very qualities I had noticed in him all those years ago were still there.Clearly they had never been the things he needed to change.Perhaps what he needed was simply the opportunity to believe that those qualitiescould coexist with being successful.What I have learnt through all of this is that truly, there is no one who cannot learn,grow and, most importantly, evolve.Sometimes we just need someone to see it.To notice the spark that might light the fire.And that spark is different for every person.For one person, it might be recognition. For another, responsibility. Someone elsemight need encouragement, trust, challenge or simply the feeling that someonebelieves they are capable of more.There should be no judgement around what it takes to ignite that spark. And there certainly shouldn’t need to be justification for it.We are all different. What motivates one person may leave another completely cold.What looks like ambition to one person may look like pressure to another. Whatfeels like success to one person may mean very little to someone else.Perhaps our role as leaders is not to have all the answers.Perhaps it is to get curious about people.
To see them.
Not just the role they occupy, the mistake they made, the target they missed or theconfidence they appear to lack.
The person.
Because people evolve.
I have evolved.
The defensive young mother who walked into that first corporate role wonderingwhether she was a liability could never have known what those experiences wouldteach her about leadership.She certainly couldn’t have known that one day she would find herself looking atanother person and thinking, there is more here.Perhaps that is what leadership has taught me most about being human.We are all works in progress.We all have moments when our confidence disappears, when we get things wrong,when we don’t quite know where we fit or what we are capable of.And sometimes, all it takes is for someone to see the possibility of who we mightbecome before we are able to see it ourselves.Maybe that is leadership.Not simply getting the best out of people.But seeing people well enough to know that there is more in them than the momentyou are looking at.And having the humanity to give them the chance to find it.
Warmly,
Haya