Adapting Coaching Strategies: Real Stories from Experienced Coaches

One example that stands out involved a client who came to me for strategic growth support. On paper, the agenda was clear: expansion decisions, organizational structure, forward planning. What showed up instead was something very different.

Midway through our work, a crisis emerged inside their leadership team. Trust had fractured, communication had shut down, and decisions were stalling. The original coaching plan—while still relevant—was no longer sufficient for the moment they were in.

I adapted by slowing everything down.

Rather than pushing forward with strategy, I shifted the work to stabilization and clarity. We paused future-focused planning and focused on immediate leadership behaviors: how decisions were being made, what conversations were being avoided, and where accountability had gone soft. I created a structured, confidential space where difficult truths could be named without theatrics or blame.

That meant changing my cadence, tightening the questions, and being far more directive than usual. Not to control the outcome—but to help the client regain footing when uncertainty was distorting judgment.

Once stability returned, we reintroduced strategy with a stronger foundation. The growth plan didn’t disappear; it matured. It became more realistic, more humane, and far more executable.

What I did in that moment was meet the leader where they were, not where the plan said they should be. Coaching isn’t about following a script. It’s about reading the room, honoring the moment, and applying the right pressure at the right time.

I’m Jeanette Brown, a relationship coach in my early 60s.

One of the clearest times I had to adapt was with a founder who booked a session for “communication skills” and arrived in tears because her co-founder had just blindsided her in a team meeting. She didn’t need a framework. She needed to feel safe enough to think.

So I changed the plan on the spot. We spent the first ten minutes calming her body. Feet on the floor, longer exhales, shoulders down, and I had her tell me what happened in plain language, not in a spiral. Then I helped her separate facts from stories. What was actually said, what was assumed, what was the real request underneath the conflict.

Once she had that clarity, we built a short repair message she could send that day, and a simple script for the next meeting that set boundaries without escalating.

The unexpected need was nervous system support, not insight.

By the end of the hour she wasn’t “fixed,” but she was steady. She walked away with words she could use, a plan for the next 24 hours, and the confidence that she could handle the conversation instead of avoiding it.

I once sat with a client as a witness to her current emotions. I arrived to a coaching session prepared for our typical structured conversation. As we sat down and I asked my client how she was, she broke down into tears — she was unable to speak. The session did not unfold as I had expected and I needed to adapt my coach approach and continuously check my own expectations in order to meet the client where she was.

The start to the session was unexpected — she had always been focused and professional in our previous interactions. I was a new coach and I had a voice in the back of my head telling me that I needed to make sure that we set the objective for our session. I recognized that this was not the time to ask about defining success for the hour, so instead I offered to get a tissue. I sat and listened to my client share a story of a family truth that had just been revealed. The story she had held of her family of origin had been shattered. I listened, and I was aware that the hour was quickly passing and we had not set a coaching objective.

When the timing seemed right, I asked my client if she wanted to take the remainder of the hour for herself and that we could reschedule our session for another time. She said that she wanted to keep talking and use the full hour. As the client is the driver of the session, I offered the client the choice to use the remaining time to focus on the current personal situation, or to switch to discuss some of the topics which we had previously discussed. She chose to continue to discuss the personal situation and we identified what success would look like for our remaining 20 minutes.

During the session I had to continuously adjust my own expectations and remind myself that the client was the driver of the coaching — not me. I had to change my approach, one that is often focused on conversation for action, to one that created the space my client needed in that moment to be with her emotions. I needed to show up as a human first and coach second, and ask my client what she needed most from our time together.

I worked with a client on the autism spectrum where emotional regulation became a key focus earlier than expected. I noticed that the pace and layering of questions was increasing overwhelm rather than supporting clarity.

I adapted by slowing the speed of the session, simplifying how questions were presented, and allowing more processing time between responses. By adjusting both tempo and delivery, the client was able to stay regulated and engaged, which made meaningful coaching possible.

Coaching rarely goes according to plan—and that’s where the work truly begins. While frameworks and assessments provide structure, real transformation often happens in the spaces we didn’t anticipate. The most effective coaching moments come not from following a curriculum, but from pausing it entirely to meet the client where they actually are.

Unexpected needs in coaching are not detours—they’re signals. They point to a deeper emotional truth that may not have been obvious at intake. Sometimes it’s a client breaking down in a session meant for resume review. Sometimes it’s someone achieving their goal and feeling surprisingly empty. Adaptability means listening beyond words, watching for shifts in tone or energy, and knowing when a new approach is more important than sticking to the timeline. It also means being trauma-informed, emotionally agile, and secure enough to relinquish control when the moment calls for it.

One client came to us for career transition coaching. She was a former healthcare administrator who had just stepped away from her role after burnout. Her goal was to identify her next steps, update her resume, and start applying to new roles. By session three, she had strong application materials and a list of ideal roles. But every time we rehearsed interviews, she froze. Her tone changed. She second-guessed every answer. Something wasn’t aligning.

So we paused the process. I asked for permission to explore what was coming up emotionally. That opened the door to a deeper conversation about internalized guilt—she hadn’t told anyone she was relieved to have left healthcare. She was grieving her identity while also feeling free. Our coaching shifted from tactical to reflective. We explored her attachment to service, her inherited beliefs around worth, and reframed her skills through a values lens. Only then did we return to career strategy—with clarity that stuck. She now works in systems design for a non-profit, still in healthcare but in a role that protects her peace.

A coaching plan is a map—not the terrain. When a client’s unexpected need surfaces, that’s not failure—it’s invitation. As coaches, our job is not to control the process, but to create space for what’s real. The best coaching doesn’t just solve problems. It sees the person beneath them.

During an executive coaching engagement focused on strategic leadership, a client experienced an unexpected organizational restructuring that significantly increased their stress and impacted their level of confidence. It became clear that continuing with performance-focused goals would miss what they most needed in that moment. I intentionally slowed the pace of our sessions and created space for reflection on the emotional and values-based impact of the change. I integrated simple regulation and grounding practices to help the client regain clarity and stability. We reframed leadership expectations to emphasize integrity, transparency, and self-compassion rather than control. This shift allowed the client to lead their team more authentically during uncertainty, developing stronger bonds with their team. Once the client felt grounded, we returned to strategic goals with greater effectiveness. Understanding the whole person is so important in coaching. This experience reinforced for me that adapting to the whole person is essential for sustainable leadership coaching.

Early on, I believed that showing up with a strong point of view and confidence was enough. If the thinking was clear and the process was solid and my energy was on point, my clients would naturally follow.

That assumption didn’t always hold up in practice and I learned loads of lessons over the years.

There was one project where my usual approach didn’t resonate at all with the client. I came in with momentum and direction, expecting the client to move quickly with me. What I missed was their actual state of mind. They weren’t in a creative or decisive place. They were overwhelmed, uncertain, and needed space to think out loud and collaborate with me before being led anywhere BY me. And this was hard for me to accept.

Nothing was “wrong” with the outputs and deliverables, but the work started to feel so strained and I took it quite personal at the time. Progress slowed. Friction crept in. It became clear that the issue wasn’t what we were doing, but how I was leading the process at that moment.

I paused the work and addressed it directly. First with myself and then I reset with the client. We had an honest conversation about what wasn’t working and reset how we were collaborating. I shifted into a more exploratory, collaborative mode first, giving the client room to reconnect with their own thinking. Once that happened, stepping back into a more directive role felt natural again and it was appreciated more.

That experience changed how I approach my work. Adaptation doesn’t mean abandoning your process or diluting your perspective. It means translating it so it meets the person in front of you.

Clients don’t need the same kind of leadership at every stage. I’ve learned that.

Sometimes they need direction. Sometimes they need partnership. The real skill is knowing when to shift without losing yourself or the integrity of the work along the way. And to find out before work begins which type of client you have taken on board.

One instance where I had to adapt my coaching approach was when a client entered the process without prior exposure to formal coaching.

Although the organisation had nominated the individual for coaching, the coachee had never experienced reflective coaching before and found a purely introspective approach uncomfortable. What they were really seeking was a blend of directional guidance and reflection.

My first step was to understand ‘what’ the need was and ‘why’ it was emerging. In our initial conversation, I set clear expectations around how the coaching sessions would be structured. We agreed on where directional coaching would be appropriate: such as suggesting action ideas, sharing tools, or drawing from relevant experiences (while maintaining confidentiality), and where reflective coaching would be used, particularly when the coachee was finalising decisions and choosing actions to take forward.

This hybrid structure helped balance the core principles of coaching while meeting the client where they were. The impact was tangible: coaching goals were clearly defined, the journey was structured over six months, and by the end, the coachee reported achieving their goals with over 70% satisfaction.

My first amputee client had bilateral amputations and no previous training file. I was ten minutes into our intro session before I realized the standard assessment was useless. None of the baseline exercises I’d use to gauge strength, mobility, or movement patterns applied.

We had to build her program from the ground up. A complete redesign. I needed to understand how her body loaded weight, where compensation created risk, and what her goals actually required outside the gym. The process was collaborative. She knew her body’s signals better than any assessment could tell me.

The question I was asking changed: instead of “how do I train this person despite their limitations,” it became “what specific challenges are they facing, and what’s the most direct solution?”

That’s now my framework for every client. Personalization isn’t about tweaking a template. It’s about designing around the individual’s biomechanics, compensation patterns, and real-world function. Most coaches know this intellectually, but working with amputee clients forces you to practice it—there’s no template to fall back on.

As a fractional COO, I am often called on to parachute into chaotic situations and bring solutions, mentoring the existing leadership as the ground shifts. On multiple occasions, I’ve stepped in to find that the need wasn’t a solution, but a strategic stillness that gave them room to breathe, process their thoughts, and find innovative ways to move forward in their own way. I intentionally held back, asked deliberate questions that helped them define and articulate their ideas and reinforced their ownership and ability to move forward.

Coaching is an individual experience for every client. However, there are always those surprises that stay close to your heart. Once, I had a client who initially came to coaching with what sounded like very concrete, outcome-driven goals. After digging deeper, it became clear that what they truly needed was space to explore their true needs and not what was “expected of them”, support through accountability paired with a safe, trusted sounding board.

I adapted my approach by slowing the pace and shifting into a more reflective coaching style. I leaned deeply into strong active listening, paying close attention not just to what they were saying, but how they were saying it—the hesitations, patterns, and nuances that signaled underlying needs. Rather than rushing to solutions, I created space for self-reflection through powerful questions and intentional pauses, allowing the client to hear their own thinking more clearly.

This shift helped the client uncover what they genuinely wanted versus what they felt they *should* want. By meeting them where they were, honoring their autonomy, and holding consistent accountability, the coaching relationship became both grounding and catalytic. The result was increased clarity, ownership, and momentum—driven not by external pressure, but by insights they arrived at themselves.

This experience reinforced for me that effective coaching isn’t about a fixed method; it’s about staying present, responsive, and attuned to support the client to Grow Bravely.