How do you balance offering practical advice with empowering clients to find their own solutions during coaching sessions?

A professional coach does not give advice to their clients. A coach creates a safe space so that the client can find their own answers and experience self-awareness-led change and growth.

The idea of coaching is to help clients understand themselves better and strengthen their inner self so that, eventually, they don’t need a coach anymore.

As the saying goes: "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."

Sometimes, when people feel stuck, I offer techniques that help them generate new answers or share stories and examples that might spark new ideas (never as absolute truth or something they need to adopt and follow).

Self-Leadership Coach

Elina Tiliba

A real, certified coach can't give advice and tell a client what to do in his life.

It's possible to share your point of view with permission and always allow the client to decide by himself if this point of view adds value to his situation or not. 

If a client wants to hear solutions from someone else. It's better to work with a mentor and not with a coach. 

The coach's goal is to explore the client's potential. To explore what it is that the client still needs to learn by himself in order to make the change in his life that he wants. 

In my coaching sessions, my clients are the ones who find their own solutions. My role is to help them identify the challenge and then offer different options for them to consider. I often share real-life stories from my own experiences where I’ve used one or more of those options as solutions. This allows clients to see the cause and effect in real-life scenarios, helping them weigh which option might work best for them—without having to go through the trial and error themselves.

One of the reasons I believe I’m an effective coach is because I’ve personally experienced a lot of what my clients are going through, and I’ve tested various solutions myself—often multiple times. This way, I can offer insights while still empowering them to make their own decisions, blending practical advice with the freedom for them to choose what resonates most.