Coaching done well means that the coach would never tell you what to do. Or, the coach would delicately offer themselves the chance to invite in their own opinion. They might pause, take a breath and ask you if they could switch to a mentoring position and tell a story.
But, in the core guidelines of coaching, the coach’s main goal is to enquire within you, for you to find your way forward.
The coaching approach is excellent and deeply empowering. Many founders benefit from coaching all of the time.
Yet I don’t believe founders need coaching all of the time.
Why can coaching sometimes fall short for founders?
An early-stage founder probably doesn’t have a board, or a mentor, or an advisory board.
So, when a coach enquires inside them for the answer to their challenge, they’re probing deeper into uncertainty. Deeper into a founder who doesn’t know what they are doing.
Yep, doesn’t know what they are doing.
That’s what all founders are doing!
Making it up as they go along.
That’s the beauty.
That’s why coaching can sometimes fall short. Because it’s inquiring too far into the unknown.
Founders need different types of support at different times
A founder needs both hard and soft-edged support at different times.
Sometimes they need the soft-edged approach of coaching to delicately help them find their way to a conclusion about something that is bugging them.
Other times they need to be told a story about something really similar, that feels more like mentoring.
Another time they need to be told:
“Don’t do that. That’ll be an expensive mistake.”
These are different modes of support, and they each have a different purpose.
Coaching. Mentoring. Advising. All in one.
In the blissful unknown of an early-stage startup journey, that is what a founder really needs.
Simply, you do not have time for too much navel-gazing.
Some, but not loads.
If you are trying hard to figure it out and only have 12 months to get it right, you can’t spend 60 minutes gazing into the distance.
Sometimes you need someone to support you in finding an immediate direction, now.
Sometimes you need to figure it out yourself.
Sometimes you need someone to tell you what they think.
Sometimes you need someone to tell you a story about what happened when they faced something similar.
And sometimes you need someone to ask you the question that helps you realise the answer was inside you all along.
A founder needs all of these things.
So, do founders need coaching?
Yes, but not coaching in isolation.
Founders need a Founder Coach.
Most Founders Don’t Need a Coach
I’ve met thousands of founders, I’ve spoken intimately with hundreds and had coaching relationships with many. Sanctus, my mental health in the workplace brand, delivered tens of thousands of coaching sessions where I employed 50 coaches and interviewed hundreds more.
They need Founder Coaching that is more directly suited to the intense nature of being a founder.
A relationship that can move between coaching, mentoring and advising, depending on what the founder actually needs in that moment.
Founders need a Founder Coach and Founder Coaching that is more directly suited to the intense nature of being a founder and it is a relationship that can more immediately serve them there and then with the challenges they are directly facing each day.
The job isn’t simply to help a founder reflect.
It is to help them navigate the unknown.
Sometimes that means a question, a story or someone to say.
“Don’t do that!”
