Build your confidence and capability in coaching neurodivergent clients through an engaging, practical, face-to-face CPD workshop with Wise Goose alumni Helen Tyrell
20 September 2026 | London | 10:30-4:30
What comes to mind when someone says “neurodivergent”?
Why are we hearing this term more often today? And what do coaches need to understand in order to work effectively, ethically and inclusively with neurodivergent clients? The growing neurodiversity movement is calling for a paradigm shift. Rather than viewing neurodivergence as a problem to be managed, it encourages us to understand it as a difference to be recognised, respected and embraced. As traditional boundaries of “acceptable difference” are challenged, new opportunities emerge for neurodivergent individuals to express their strengths and contribute their unique talents to a world that needs them. For coaches, this presents both an opportunity and a responsibility.
Why neurodiversity matters in coaching
The broad spectrum of conditions and presentations that fall under the neurodiversity umbrella can feel confusing and overwhelming.
Yet with greater understanding, awareness and practical tools, coaches can play a significant role in supporting neurodivergent individuals, families, workplaces and communities.
This workshop will help you develop the confidence, knowledge and practical approaches needed to create a more inclusive and effective coaching practice.
What you’ll gain from the day
You will leave with:
✅ A clear and practical overview of neurodiversity and the range of conditions it encompasses
✅ Deeper insight into two of the most commonly encountered forms of neurodivergence and their implications for coaching
✅ An understanding of how neurodivergence can present differently in women
✅ Guidance on diagnosis; when it can be helpful, when it may not be, and how people can access support
✅ A practical toolkit for creating a neurodiversity-friendly coaching practice
Including:
Neuro-inclusive language and communication
Coaching adaptations that support different needs
Creative approaches to common coaching challenges
Effective self-management when working with neurodivergent clients
This workshop is designed for:
Professional coaches
Executive coaches
Internal coaches
Coach trainees
Mentors & Managers
HR and people professionals
Anyone wishing to better understand neurodiversity through a coaching lens
No previous specialist knowledge of neurodiversity is required.
Helen specialises in working with neurodivergent clients across a wide range of contexts, from individuals facing significant societal barriers to professionals seeking to thrive in their work and lives.
Although Helen does not personally identify as neurodivergent, her early experiences supporting a close family member – and later friends and wider family members -sparked a deep understanding of both the challenges and the gaps in support many people experience.
As awareness grows and perspectives evolve, Helen is passionate about helping people explore, accept and celebrate their differences, unlocking potential and enabling them to bring their unique strengths to the world.
Helen is a Wise Goose graduate and a member of the Association for Coaching.
I’m in London in another heatwave, having just completed delivering our Wise Goose ‘Foundations’ in Coaching with Dr Sybille Schiffmann.
I’ll be travelling back to Devon this afternoon, but for now I’m sitting in a café feeling fairly satisfied with our work so far. I’m also trying to capture something difficult to put into words – an exciting moment, when, at a certain point in professional development, something begins to shift.
Earlier in the course, learning to coach understandably focused on doing:
how to listen well
how to ask questions
how to structure a session
how to intervene skilfully
These things matter. They create safety, credibility, and effectiveness.
But for the trainee coaches in the room, another question began to come into view.
Who am I being when I coach?
This question links to: Why become a coach?
Usually the answer to the second question comes out of an interest in people, a wish to help others reach their potential. Beneath this, though perhaps not quite as conscious, is a desire to understand themselves, a curiosity about their own values and qualities, a wish to grow personally and professionally. I believe this interest in self-development is essential to being an effective and ethical professional coach.
And because the ‘self’ we are developing is multifaceted, fluid, complex and contextual these questions open a rich, layered process.
When technique is no longer enough
I have been coaching for almost four decades, I’m an accredited ‘Master Coach’ yet I still see myself as becoming a coach.
Why is this?
As coaches develop, we often notice a paradox. We have more tools, we know more and feel more competent. And yet, some situations remain stubbornly complex.
Clients bring dilemmas that don’t resolve neatly. Ethical tensions surface. Uncertainty persists even when the “right” questions are asked.
At this stage, progress doesn’t come from adding another technique.
It comes from how the coach shows up. This is the emergent, continuous process of ‘becoming a coach’.
Presence is not a performance
Coach presence is sometimes spoken about as if it were a quality to display; something calm, confident, and reassuring. In practice, it’s more nuanced and demanding.
Presence involves:
staying engaged when you don’t know what to do next
resisting the urge to be helpful too quickly
tolerating silence, uncertainty, and emotional complexity
noticing your own reactions without letting them run the session
risking being direct or sharing your experience when it’s neither smooth nor comfortable
This isn’t about being neutral or distant. It’s about being deeply involved without being pulled off centre.
It’s easy to talk theoretically about using ‘self’ as an instrument, but in practice it’s a challenge. It’s not a technique to master.
Presence shaped through tension
One of the less broadcast truths of coaching is that coach identity is formed through tension rather than through certainty.
This happens through moments where:
you want to help, but know you need to wait
you sense something important, but don’t yet have the words
you feel the pull to take sides, and choose instead to stay curious
Over time, these moments shape the coach far more than any framework or model. They cultivate humility, deepen discernment and invite relationship that’s rooted in presence rather than expertise alone.
From “doing coaching” to “being a coach”
At a certain point, the distinction between personal and professional development begins to soften. How a coach listens in sessions begins to resemble how they listen in life. How they stay with uncertainty in their work mirrors how they meet uncertainty personally.
This isn’t accidental.
Even as we teach the basics, we can show this by taking care to ‘hold’ the learning space, at the same time as holding it lightly, often playfully – educating but not being too attached to the role of educator.
What does this look like in practice?
At the simplest level this might look like holding the creative tension between ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
‘Yes’ to the group with all its diversity and difference, creating a safe place to try things out and make mistakes – and modelling this ourselves.
‘No’ sits alongside this and often feels ‘edgier’. ‘No’ can look like holding a boundary. A couple of times over the past days I risked being direct in a way that could unsettle worldviews or expectations of smooth ‘by the book’ professional performances.
This is about being in the room in a way that’s congruent; a natural self-expression. We want to show that coaching at depth draws on the whole person. This goes beyond cultivating skill in applying techniques or a particular ‘right’ approach.
This can be messy. And uncomfortable. But despite the discomfort I want the group to see my missteps and how these can be met, managed and repaired. Ultimately, this way of working can be enjoyable, invigorating and liberating. I think of it as serious play.
I also think of the work as layered.
On the surface we learn self-understanding as we pay attention to the unfolding of a client’s story, and learn to evaluate our competencies, strengths and weaknesses.
Beneath this lies deeper presence; the ways we use ‘self.’
Surrounding this is the interplay of relationships in which both client and coach are embedded – recognising that coach and client are both part of complex dynamic systems.
The ethical dimension of presence
There is an ethical aspect to this movement through competencies, self-awareness and system awareness.
When coaching becomes less about performance and more about presence, the coach is less likely to:
impose solutions
rush clients towards action
collude with narratives that simplify lived complexity
Instead, they become more attentive to:
what is being protected
what is at stake
what might be lost through premature clarity
where power or agency lie in the wider system
Presence, in this sense, is not just a personal quality.
It’s a professional responsibility.
An ongoing becoming
There is no final arrival point here.
Coach presence is not something we achieve and then possess. It is something we practise, across changing contexts, clients, and stages of life.
It evolves as we evolve.
And perhaps that is the gift of coaching as a profession.
That it continues to shape how we work, and how we live.
Reflective question:In your own coaching or leadership, where might the next stage of development be less about what you learn – and more about who you are becoming?
This post has also been shared as an article on Linkedin
This week, I’ll be working with a training group on their final meeting of their Wise Goose Limited Advanced Diploma journey.
As part of this are spending a day at the British Museum. I took the photo above there last year. I think this quote from Alexander Pope fits well with the topic of this weeks post.
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.
Why the British Museum? The purpose of the visit is experiment with shifting perspectives.
The invitation is for students to ‘locate’ themselves in a wider world. To wander and wonder and practice coaching, exploring how they are part of something larger.
I could have chosen somewhere else, an art gallery, the Science or Natural History Museums. In the past when we held this topic in Devon we went onto Dartmoor. The point is that any of these could work.
We’ve been working together for a year. On the one hand I’m looking forward to the completion, the celebration, the satisfaction of a job well done and the spaciousness that follows letting go. On the other hand I don’t want to let go, I want to continue the journey with these amazing people who I have come to know.
There’s a particular quality at moments like this. On the surface, something is finishing:
the taught elements are complete
the structure that has held the learning is loosening
portfolios, assessments, appreciations and certifications are in view
And yet, underneath that, something else is beginning. Not a new programme but a different relationship to development itself.
Earlier in professional life, development often looks like accumulation. More knowledge. More skill. More confidence. More competence.
That kind of growth is essential. It gives us solidity and credibility.
But at a certain point, often somewhere towards the end of a long training journey, like this one, another experience surfaces. This is the sense that:
knowing more doesn’t automatically make things simpler
competence doesn’t remove uncertainty or complexity
and insight doesn’t always dissolve tension
This can feel unsettling, especially for people who are capable, reflective, and used to mastering complexity.
Some new graduates react to this by immediately reaching for the next programme, more input, more certainty and reassuring structures to bring security and fill the gap.
But that feeling of not knowing, of uncertainty may be signalling something worth staying with for a while.
From fixing problems to holding paradox
One of the shifts I often notice at this stage is a change in what people are working with. Earlier, the focus tends to be on:
Later, something more subtle can come into view. Situations where:
two values matter deeply and neither can be sacrificed
progress involves staying present rather than moving on
These aren’t problems to solve.
They are paradoxes to live with.
Why paradox marks a new stage of development
In earlier articles I’ve looked at how paradox is often misunderstood as confusion or lack of clarity.
In fact, an ability to recognise and work with paradox usually appears after clarity has been worked hard for. It emerges when someone can:
see more than one side of a situation
tolerate contradiction without panic
resist the urge to collapse complexity into choosing one option too quickly
This requires deeper engagement. Where coach and the client are not standing outside, but inhabiting an issue more fully; attentive to tensions, values, relationships and exploring unintended consequences of actions. I’m thinking here about the capacity to hold:
action and restraint
authority and humility
engagement and letting go
These are living tensions and developing this ability to shift perspectives develops over time.
Although I recognise these pushes and pulls more readily as I grow as a coach and a trainer, I also make miss-steps. I may have been accredited as a ‘Master’ coach but this is an art I’m still learning to master!
Coaching at this level looks different
As I prepare to complete the journey with this group of coaches next week, I know that as they reach this stage, their work will change in subtle and significant ways. They may:
intervene less, but with greater precision
speak less, but listen more deeply
feel less pressure to be helpful, and more commitment to be honest
They become less attached to delivering outcomes, and more attentive to process.
This is a shift from doing coaching to being a coach, where presence itself becomes part of the work.
An ending that doesn’t close things down
As this diploma journey comes to an end, what matters most to me isn’t that people feel finished. I want them to leave with:
greater trust that their work is about not knowing everything
a more generous relationship with uncertainty and complexity
and a willingness to let go of being an expert and let development continue unfolding
The play of paradox, once noticed, doesn’t go away. Instead it becomes part of how we see, and how we stand, in the world.
A lifelong practice
There’s something humbling about this stage of learning. There is no final ‘mastery’; no point at which tension resolves for ever; no destination or arrival that closes the journey.
Instead, there is an ongoing practice:
of staying present
of allowing growth to be shaped by what is emerging rather than driven by certainty
of holding contradictions with integrity
and remembering that part of the practice is recognising when we can’t quite manage the stretch at this time, or in this context.
That may not sound like a neat ending.
But it is, I think, the most honest beginning available.
Reflective question:Where in your own development might paradox be inviting you not to resolve things, but to grow your capacity to hold them?
This article has also been published under Helen Sieroda’s Linkedin articles.
Most of us are pretty good at dealing with dilemmas.
Much of our professional training, and education more broadly has taught us how to analyse options, weigh pros and cons, and make a choice.
A dilemma presents us with an either/or:
this option or that one
yes or no
stay or go
And while dilemmas can be uncomfortable, they usually come with an implicit promise: if you choose well, the discomfort will ease.
Paradox is different.
But before going there, it’s worth staying for a moment with dilemmas, because they’re familiar territory for most of us, and they often show up in very ordinary professional moments, especially in situations where there’s pressure, responsibility, and something at stake.
A familiar dilemma
I noticed a dilemma recently at a networking event.
Someone was talking about wanting to secure work with a client. The client hadn’t followed up with a yes.
From the outside, it seemed possible the client simply needed more time, perhaps to explore other options or decide whether the work with this person and this time was right for them.
What I could also see was how financial pressure might be shaping the consultant’s approach. Their focus was on pushing the sale forward and securing the deal.
And in that moment, I felt my own dilemma arise.
Do I say something about what might genuinely serve both consultant and client here: something about space, time, the dangers of pushing a client into premature action – or do I keep quiet?
Yes there was a potential ethical question here. But I was a participant, not the facilitator, and not the supervisor. I didn’t even know this person. I do know offering unsolicited advice seldom helps. And I imagine the client is perfectly able to make their own decision.
I weighed it up and chose not to speak.
This is a common dilemma in professional life: one I’ve experienced myself – the financial pressure dilemma.
Financial pressure doesn’t necessarily make us unethical, but pretending it isn’t there can compromise our judgement, and sometimes the client’s wellbeing too.
Dilemmas like this ask us to choose.
Speak or stay silent.
Push or pause.
Protect income or protect the relationship.
And again, there’s that familiar promise: if you choose well, the discomfort will ease.
Here are some other examples I see frequently in my own life and in my work with others:
Short term or long term
Freedom or responsibility
Structure or flexibility
Control or adaptability
Reflection or action
Go with the flow or take a stand
When choosing doesn’t resolve things
Unlike the example above, a paradox doesn’t ask us to decide between two options.
It asks us to recognise that two truths remain true at the same time, even when they pull in opposite directions.
For example:
the need to act and the need to wait
loyalty to others and loyalty to self
structure and freedom
confidence and humility
In these situations, choosing one side doesn’t bring relief. It often creates a new form of tension, because something essential has been left behind.
This is usually the moment people feel most unsettled.
Not because they lack intelligence or courage, but because the usual strategies no longer work.
Why paradox feels like failure (at first)
In contexts that prize decisiveness and clarity, which includes most work or business cultures, encountering paradox can feel like personal inadequacy.
We tell ourselves:
I should be clearer by now.
Other people seem to manage this.
Why can’t I just decide and move on?
But paradox isn’t just confusion.
It’s a signal that the situation you’re in can’t be reduced without losing something important.
The discomfort isn’t only about feeling stuck. It also means the question you’re facing is larger than a simple answer.
The temptation to collapse the tension
When faced with paradox, most of us try to make it go away. We might:
over‑identify with one side and discount the other
rationalise the loss of the other as the price we have to pay
turn a both/and situation back into either/or
This often brings short‑term relief.
But over time, the sidelined truth tends to return; as dissatisfaction, resentment, fatigue, or a sense of living slightly out of alignment.
Paradox doesn’t disappear when ignored.
It waits.
What it means to “stay”
When I talk about staying with paradox, I don’t mean passivity, procrastination or never-ending vacillation.
I mean something more demanding.
Staying involves:
resisting the urge for premature resolution
allowing yourself to feel the pull of both sides
becoming curious about what each truth is protecting or calling for
This requires a different kind of strength: not the strength to push through, but the strength to recognise and hold complexity without collapsing it.
Over time, something subtle can happen.
Not a solution, exactly, but a shift in perspective.
A sense of standing somewhere that can see the whole, rather than being caught inside one part of it.
Paradox as a sign of maturity
One of the insights that emerges through coaching and reflective practice is that paradox often appears later, not earlier, in development.
As self-awareness grows, we become less willing to simplify what we care about. We notice contradictions we previously glossed over. This is a sign that our capacity for seeing, and holding, complexity is expanding.
In this sense, paradox is not a problem to solve.
It’s a capacity to grow into.
The risks of misunderstanding paradox
Paradox can open something important, but it also has its own risks.
When we first begin to recognise complexity, it can be tempting to retreat into “everything depends” or “there are no right answers.”
At its best, this stance encourages humility, curiosity and tolerance. But taken too far, it can quietly slide into disengagement, where nothing is named clearly, and responsibility becomes blurred.
I notice this in myself at times.
In difficult conversations, especially when there’s strong feeling or difference, I can slip into generalisations or black‑and‑white thinking to escape the discomfort. At other times, I can do the opposite, staying so open that I avoid taking a stand at all.
Neither response really honours paradox.
Staying with paradox doesn’t mean abandoning values or dissolving everything into “it’s all relative.” It means holding complexity without losing discernment, and staying connected to what matters while resisting premature certainty.
This is delicate work.
And it’s one reason paradox isn’t a concept to master, but a capacity to practise.
A different relationship with certainty
Living well with paradox doesn’t mean abandoning action or clarity.
It means learning how to recognise when clarity is possible, and when it isn’t yet. And when we don’t have clarity yet to frame any actions as experiments.
It means trusting that some forms of movement only become available after we’ve stayed with the tension long enough for something new to emerge.
Not from forcing an answer, but from deepened understanding.
Standing in the question
A dilemma asks you to choose.
A paradox asks you to stay; attentive, honest, and present, when the way forward isn’t immediately clear.
That’s not an easy ask.
But in many areas of life and work, it may be the most faithful response available.
And staying doesn’t mean nothing happens. It means learning how to act without collapsing complexity – how to move forward while keeping both truths in view.
Reflective question: Where in your life or work might you be facing a paradox, and what would it mean to stay with it a little longer, rather than trying to resolve it too quickly?
This piece is part of an ongoing series of practice‑based writing from Wise Goose, exploring coaching, meaning, ambivalence and transition as they show up in real work and real lives.
These reflections grow out of our coach training and supervision work, where we focus not on fixing complexity, but on learning how to stay present with it.
This reflection comes from my work in coaching and coach training at Wise Goose, and from noticing how ambivalence shows up again and again, not as a problem, but as a pointer towards greater authenticity.
May has always been my favourite month in Devon.
The hedgerows are extravagant, cow parsley frothing at the edges, hawthorn bursting into white; bluebells and lilac and red campion. And the clematis twining higher every year, covering the dying weeping ash with blooms. Everything feels alive. There’s a sense of promise without urgency.
At this time of year, I notice a familiar pull.
Part of me wants to be in the garden, hands in the soil, noticing what’s emerging, letting the days unfold at a slower pace. Another part of me feels equally drawn to work, teaching, writing, shaping the next stages of our programmes, responding to what’s emerging. I want to get creative and imagine new projects, new collaborations and new thinking.
If I neglect the garden, I feel guilty as brambles and bindweed begin to take over.
If I neglect the work, I feel I’m losing touch with an important part of myself – and feel guilty there too.
Sometimes I seesaw between the two. Sometimes I get caught in the middle and sit and gaze and do nothing.
Both pulls feel real. Both matter. And neither is wrong.
What’s uncomfortable is not the pulls themselves but standing in the space between them. This is ambivalence, not as an abstract idea, but as lived experience.
Why ambivalence makes us uncomfortable
In many professional contexts, ambivalence is treated as a weakness.
We’re encouraged to:
make clear choices
commit fully
focus our energy in one direction
So, when we feel torn, we often assume something has gone wrong. That we’re procrastinating, lacking clarity, or failing to prioritise properly.
But ambivalence isn’t the absence of direction.
It’s the presence of more than one truth and both have meaning.
And that’s why it can feel so unsettling.
The mistake of rushing ourselves
As the training programme begins to settle into its rhythm, I’m noticing how often ambivalence shows up for new coaches, and how quickly people try to push past it.
They want to know:
Am I doing this right?
Should I be more confident by now?
Why do I feel both excited and unsure?
From the outside, this can look like hesitation.
From the inside, it’s often something more nuanced.
Learning to coach, like learning to live well, involves holding competing pulls:
structure and openness
competence and humility
action and reflection
If we rush ourselves to resolve these tensions too quickly, we often lose something essential.
What ambivalence is really telling us
Whenever I meet deep competing pulls, I try to remind myself of the Latin root of the word – ambi meaning both, and valere meaning strength, worth or power. Valour, value, valid, valiant; there’s beauty and timeless strength hiding in the roots of the word.
On a more practical level, when I pause and listen, whether to myself, to participants, or to clients, ambivalence often turns out to be information.
It tells us:
that values are in play
that identities and identifications are shifting
that an old way of organising life or work is loosening
The pull of the garden and the pull of work aren’t competing enemies. They’re both expressions of care, for life, for growth, for contribution.
The work isn’t to choose one and silence the other.
The work is to stay present long enough for a wiser relationship between them to emerge.
Coaching doesn’t remove ambivalence; it can teach us to stay
One of the things coaching invites, and that we try to model when training Wise Goose coaches, is a different response to inner conflict.
Instead of asking: How do I get rid of this tension?
We begin to ask:
What matters on each side?
What is each pull trying to protect or express?
What happens if I don’t rush to decide?
It takes courage to stay with mixed feelings without collapsing into action or avoidance – to remain in that in‑between space long enough for something wiser to emerge.
But over time, something else becomes possible, maybe not a neat solution, but a deeper sense of integrity.
For me this is where sitting and gazing can be exactly what’s needed. Seek no answer. Search for no meaning. Ignore my own advice, Ignore the questions I just wrote above. Just allow things to rest a while, to remain unsolved. Unfinished. This isn’t meditation and it isn’t mindfulness. It’s not laziness either – though for years I thought I was being lazy. It’s something else. Something that doesn’t want to be ‘worded’.
Living with the season you’re in
May won’t last forever. Neither will the intensity of launching programmes, holding training spaces, or meeting deadlines.
Part of maturity, in work and in life, is learning to recognise the season you’re in, without insisting it should be something else.
Right now, for me, that includes:
enjoying the hedgerows in bloom
feeling the pull of the garden; the joy of sowing and planting, and weeding.
complaining about the coolness of the temperature this May, which includes a nagging anxiety about what the weather might be telling me about the climate.
and continuing to show up fully for the work that matters whether that be coaching, supervision or training or something new and unexpected.
Not by resolving the tension between them, but by letting them inform one another. And sometimes this happens by doing neither and both at the same time as I sit with a cup of coffee, breathing sweet May air, listening to birdsong.
A different way of understanding progress
Ambivalence doesn’t have to mean you’re stuck.
It often means you’re awake to the complexity of what you care about.
And that’s not a problem to fix.
It’s a place to stand, to be with, until the next step becomes clearer in its own time.
Reflective question: Where in your own life or work are you feeling two pulls at once – and what might change if you treated that tension as meaningful rather than something to overcome?
This piece is part of an ongoing series of practice‑based writing from Wise Goose, exploring coaching, meaning, ambivalence and transition as they show up in real work and real lives.
These reflections grow out of our coach training, leadership coaching and supervision work, where we focus not on fixing complexity, but on learning how to stay present with it.
This reflection was written in the midst of delivering the first days of Wise Goose Foundations course. It’s part of an ongoing series of articles exploring goals, meaning, growth and transition, and what coaching can offer when achievement alone doesn’t quite answer the deeper questions people are carrying.
The first two days of the new Wise Goose Foundations cohort, our five-day introduction to coaching, are complete.
I’ve been working towards the launch for months, checking that the programme design is still current, marketing (not my greatest love or strength), making sure the admin is taken care of, then, at last, the exciting, fun bit – welcoming a new group, holding the space, teaching, and seeing skills grow and trust begin to form in the room.
One of the things I love most about this particular training is that after two rich and full days participants can walk out of the door ready to start coaching their peers.
By any reasonable measure, the goal has been achieved.
And yet, in the lull that follows, I’m noticing something familiar.
Not disappointment. Not dissatisfaction.
Just a subtle sense of “and now what?”
The moment after the goal is met
We often talk about the process of working towards a goal; the effort, the challenges, the focus, the stretch.
We talk less about the moment after the goal has been reached.
On Monday evening, after we’d closed the gate to the Paper Garden and I walked towards Canada Water it felt like a long slow exhale:
The structure that has been guiding actions loosens.
The energy changes, it subsides and settles. It’s similar to the feeling when I’ve climbed a really steep hill – you reach the top, sense your heart rate slowing and breathe deeply taking in the view.
There’s space to notice other things that have been carrying on in the background while our focus was elsewhere – for me it’s the weeds that have been taking over my allotment, and a creative writing project that’s languishing.
For many people, this moment brings satisfaction and relief.
For others, it brings something more ambiguous:
a slight emptiness
a sense of anticlimax
the realisation that there’s another hill to climb
or the realisation that achievement didn’t quite answer a deeper question it was standing in for
It’s often a bit of both. This doesn’t mean the goal was wrong.
It means the goal was doing more than one job.
When goals carry more weight than they can hold
As I look back on these first days of Foundations, I’m very aware that for some participants, starting this course has also been a long‑held goal.
They’ve invested time, money, hope, and energy.
And alongside the excitement of beginning, for a few, there may be a subtle undercurrent, a deeper question of what this step is really meant to resolve for them.
Goals often carry unspoken or unconscious expectations:
This will make my future feel clearer.
This will settle my uncertainty.
This will finally align work and life.
Sometimes they do.
And sometimes, achieving the goal simply reveals that another layer of growth is asking for attention.
Two kinds of growth, pulling in different directions
There’s a pattern I see again and again in coaching and training.
One part of us is oriented towards:
action
achievement
competence
making things happen in the world
This part is essential. It gets things done.
Another part of us is oriented towards:
meaning
integrity
alignment
living in a way that feels inwardly coherent
This part is often easier to ignore.
For long periods of life, these two can move in the same direction.
But at certain moments, particularly around transitions , endings or new beginnings, they can pull against each other.
That tension doesn’t mean something has gone wrong.
It means growth is no longer only about answering the call of one side.
Why “empty goals” aren’t actually empty
When people talk about goals feeling empty, it’s rarely because they don’t care and it’s rarely because the goal lacked value or purpose.
It’s because the goal has been reached, and the deeper question it was pointing towards is still unanswered.
Questions like:
Who am I becoming through this?
What really matters now?
How do I live this, not just achieve it?
These questions can feel uncomfortable, especially in professional contexts that reward clarity, drive and momentum. The discomfort that can follow achievement is often not failure, but a signal that meaning and identity are asking to catch up with action.
They’re not distractions from progress.
They’re invitations to a different quality of growth.
What I’m noticing as the Foundations course unfolds
As I reflect on these first days, the learning, the trust‑building, the tentative confidence beginning to emerge, I’m reminded that coach training can be a paradoxical art. It includes the skills, techniques and frameworks and it’s also about learning to stay present when:
achievement doesn’t bring immediate resolution
there’s a discomfort or struggle to align valued ways of working (perhaps from a therapeutic or advice giving/consultancy modality) with a coaching approach
new questions appear just as old ones are answered
This is as true for facilitators as it is for participants.
Living the question, not rushing past it
The temptation, when a goal is achieved, is to quickly set the next one.
Sometimes that’s exactly right.
And sometimes, a more impactful move is to pause and notice what the achievement has made visible.
Because the emptiness that can follow a goal isn’t a failure of ambition.
It’s often a sign that life is asking us to bring together what we do and who we are becoming, rather than letting one stand in for the other. It’s a question that needs us to be with ourselves and not rush towards the next goal, the next project or the next action. This is a question that shows up not just in coaching, but in many, many forms of professional and personal transition.
Questions like these sit at the heart of our coach training at Wise Goose where we work not only with skills and techniques, but with the inner work of transition, learning how to stay present when new questions emerge just as old ones are answered.
Reflective question: Where in your own work or life have you reached a goal, only to discover a deeper question waiting underneath?
This article is part of our reflections on coaching, growth and transition. It also appears on my ‘Helen Sieroda’ Linkedin articles page. You might also like: – Why Feeling Stuck Is Often a Meaning Problem, Not a Motivation One – What It Really Means to Stay With Ambivalence – Coaching When There Are No Easy Answers
From scientist to coach and why meaningful conversations matter
Wise Goose alumnus Martin Bloxham reflects on coaching, leadership, and how tools like the Map of Meaning shape meaningful work in practice.
From science to leadership – and coaching
When Martin Bloxham joined Wise Goose, he was already working globally as a leadership trainer for scientists. With a background in analytical chemistry and years as a UN consultant, his work focused on supporting scientists who find themselves moving quickly into leadership roles.
Yet something wasn’t quite landing.
“I thought I was already coaching people, but I just wasn’t doing it very well. I thought somehow I had to help them by providing answers and solutions – because that’s what scientists do.”
That realisation, that advice‑giving wasn’t always what people needed, became a turning point.
Discovering what coaching really is (and isn’t)
Martin came to Wise Goose with what he describes as “healthy scepticism”, something he still recognises as a core part of scientific culture.
“Scientists are sceptics by nature, inquisitive, critical. So you have to make sure what you offer fits the audience.”
What struck him early on was the warmth, the practical nature of the training, and the importance of leaving with something usable.
“Unless you can leave with something to use, it might be a nice experience, but it’s not very useful. I left with something to use that was really important.”
Over time, coaching began to permeate far beyond one‑to‑one conversations.
Coaching as a way of being in service
Since completing the programme, Martin has built a substantial coaching practice alongside his training work, coaching senior leaders and teams within science organisations worldwide.
“The training has enabled me to have the confidence to promote myself and take on coaching clients. I’m now coaching people at senior levels and doing team coaching as well.”
More than tools or models, what stayed with him was a shift in stance.
“As a professional coach, I am in service to others. As a trainer, I’m in service to others. Coaching is really not about you – it’s about the other person.”
This idea of service now underpins his leadership development work, facilitation, and even how he chairs boards.
Coaching Tools & Frameworks – timing matters
Among the frameworks Martin continues to use is the Map of Meaning, recently explored in the latest Wise Goose weekend.
“I use many of the tools from the training, the GROW model, the development wheel, and the Map of Meaning.”
Yet he’s clear that when and how a tool is introduced matters just as much as the tool itself.
“I did the Map of Meaning with a client recently, I would never have done that six months ago. It wouldn’t have landed then. It did land now.”
For Martin, this speaks to one of coaching’s core disciplines: meeting people where they are.
Beyond individuals: coaching teams and organisations
More recently, Martin has been working with senior science teams in global organisations, work he describes as challenging and deeply rewarding.
“It’s a very different space coaching a team. There was cynicism at first, but at the end there was a real sense of ‘wow, we did something meaningful’. And the fact they said ‘let’s do this again’ – that’s the win.”
That sense of wanting to return, not being told to, is something he holds as a marker of success.
Coaching, facilitation, and meaningful conversations
One of Martin’s reflections is how closely coaching and facilitation intertwine.
“When you’re facilitating, you’re operating in a coaching mode. It’s not about you, it’s about helping the group get the most from the space.”
Today, his organisation also teaches coaching and mentoring conversations to scientists, not to turn them into coaches, but to help them lead more humanely.
“We’re not teaching people to be coaches. We’re teaching them to have meaningful conversations.”
A final reflection
Martin is clear that coaching isn’t about expertise in a particular field, or having all the answers.
This became especially vivid for him after a conversation with a business owner who believed that decades of experience automatically qualified him to coach younger people; that coaching was simply about passing on hard‑won knowledge. Martin appreciated the intention, but also the misunderstanding.
“You don’t need forty years of experience to be a coach. Coaching is about listening, empathising, and working with someone else.”
What struck Martin was the subtle but crucial distinction between advice‑giving and coaching. Coaching, as he has come to practise it, is not about positioning oneself as the expert in the room, but about creating space for others to think, explore, and find their own way forward.
It’s a perspective that continues to ripple outward, into leadership, organisations, and the wider systems his work touches, shaping more thoughtful, humane and meaningful conversations wherever he works.
In the video below, Martin speaks candidly about his journey, the realities of coaching sceptical audiences, and why frameworks like the Map of Meaning continue to support meaningful, grounded practice.
Interested in training that lives on in real practice?
Explore Wise Goose professional coach training and discover approaches and frameworks designed to support meaningful work, wherever your practice takes you.
We’ve just passed the equinox and the first three months of the year have seen new beginnings for me. So far, I’ve stepped out into three very different spheres.
The first is digital. In January, I joined Cosmic Digital’s AI Bootcamp. If I’m honest, AI has never been my natural habitat; tech is not my first love. But AI isn’t going away, and I realised that if I wanted to decide how (or whether) to use it, I needed to understand it. The course was a big commitment, a whole day a week online for nine weeks, plus a capstone project to ‘cap’ it off.
To my surprise, every week brought a sense of enjoyment and, more importantly, a sense of responsibility. The ethical questions, about transparency, accountability, bias, the fragile line between support and contagion, and the importance of keeping the human touch throughout feel deeply relevant to the work we do in coaching and leadership.
An unexpected bonus is a surge of creativity, supported by AI. I really didn’t see that coming. Using AI to take some of the donkey work of research has opened up space and time for me to innovate and play with developing and ‘weaving’ ideas.
The other beginnings are more tactile.
After decades of not lifting a knitting needle, I’ve returned.
In December my son said he’d like a sweater for Christmas, a slouchy Aran ‘Harry Met Sally’ style, and I found myself saying ‘I could knit that’ only to realise that I probably couldn’t. Then he gave me a beautiful book for Christmas, ‘The Wonder of Wool’ and something in me stirred.
A scarf, a shawl (in the picture) a hat knitted on circular needles (my first outing into knitting ‘in the round’), and an almost‑finished gilet later, I’m finding joy in the slowness, the texture, even the mistakes. For the gilet I chose Leicester Longwool one of the UK’s rarest native breeds. I like to thought of supporting the breeder and spinner who supplied the skeins.
I also began an art class. Let’s just say that what appears on the paper bears only a passing resemblance to the idea in my head. In one class I drew a sheep in pastels. In another a bright watercolour parrot with a leg in the wrong place. They are….. interpretive. But it reminds me that curiosity trumps competence when we are learning.
Meanwhile AI is everywhere, increasingly intimate, misunderstood and misused. AI is a tsunami sweeping into every corner of society and organisational life faster than we can assess its impact or make informed choices about how to use, or regulate its use. There’s a leadership drag in organisations and governments, accumulated years of avoiding foundational questions about purpose when it comes to installing the latest ‘solutions’. It’s leaving a deeply troubling empty hole where wise governance and responsibility should be.
AI doesn’t fix that, it exposes it.
A couple of months ago a Linkedin post by Laurence Barrett caught my attention. He pointed out something that should be obvious but clearly isn’t in the current wave of AI enthusiasm: AI is not a person. It does not have empathy, intuition, or a nervous system. It cannot form a relationship. It can only simulate one, and we project the rest.
This simulation is seductive. It mirrors us back to ourselves, fluently, instantly, without need or boundary. It is, as Barrett puts it, like Narcissus at the pool: captivated by his own reflection. With AI we run the risk of falling in love with our own projected brilliance, never noticing that the “other” is empty, indifferent, and incapable of reciprocity. Meanwhile, our genuine relational capacities, empathy, presence, discomfort, could fade like an echo.
Years ago, when I was teaching psychosynthesis therapists in Sweden, one of the topics I designed was ‘Everyday Narcissism’. We used myth as a springboard for exploring the spiritual path as a journey from ‘the narcissism of everyday life’ towards awakening the soul to ‘Being’ and ‘Interbeing’. We would explore the vulnerabilities and patterns we all fall into that feed our narcissism and cut us off from experiencing connection. It was rich and challenging and I loved teaching it.
Echo is often left out of the picture when we think of narcissism, for me she was a central ‘voice’ in the pattern. The point is she has no voice of her own, she has been cursed to only mirror back the last words of others. This is more relevant than ever, AI feeds us endless content echoing the stolen words of others. At the same time, unless we pause, reflect and give space for a human voice, we risk becoming passive and ‘Echo-like’ in return.
For coaching, this isn’t a side issue, it strikes directly at the heart of our work because coaching is relational. Not performatively relational; relational in the sense of meeting in mutual, embodied attention. This isn’t only about human relationships, I’d argue that it includes wider contexts, systems, and ‘more than human’ worlds. For example, as I write this I can look out of the window; there are sheep in the field opposite, very soon there will be lambs. Then there is knitting on the needles in the next room. At teatime I might work a row or two, feel wool passing through my hands, enjoying the way it connects me to sheep and a sense of place. AI cannot do this, no matter how fluent the text or friendly the tone. In a world where AI is becoming a major tool we need to pay attention to these wider connections more than ever, bringing them to the foreground, not allowing them to fade like Echo in her cave.
So what can we do with all this?
For me, the answer loops back to where I began: starting, whether with yarn, watercolours or AI, demands curiosity over certainty. A willingness to experiment and make mistakes. There’s a lot to interrogate about the ways AI is shaping decisions, influencing behaviour, and raising big questions about autonomy, trust, and responsibility. For now I’ve decided the question isn’t whether I use it or not; I will, but how, why, on what terms is to be evaluated and re-chosen as I go. And what if, despite the guardrails I’ve put in place it becomes toxic? I can’t answer that from here, but I am curious and will keep asking difficult questions.
Guess what? This morning, I received an email from Cosmic with my certificate; I got a distinction! A cherry on an AI cake!!
A global sustainability executive reflects on how Wise Goose coaching reshaped her leadership, deepened her impact, and influenced organisational culture.
In this in‑depth conversation, Daniella reflects on her time training with Wise Goose, how coaching transformed her leadership, and the unexpected ripple effects that still shape her work today. This written piece accompanies the audio interview. Listen on Soundcloud
When Daniella Vega joined Wise Goose in 2018, she was already a highly experienced sustainability leader working at executive level. Today, as Senior Vice President for Health & Sustainability at Ahold Delhaize, a Dutch‑Belgian multinational and one of the world’s largest food retail groups headquartered in Zaandam in the Netherlands, she continues to shape how major global businesses integrate environmental and social priorities into strategy, value creation and long‑term resilience.
Before Wise Goose: A Career in Sustainability Leadership
Before joining Wise Goose, Daniella was Group Director of Sustainability at Selfridges Group, overseeing sustainability strategies across four markets: the UK, Ireland, Canada and the Netherlands. Earlier in her career, she contributed to major sustainability and corporate responsibility initiatives at Sky.
She had already completed a Master’s degree in sustainability, but she was searching for something deeper, a leadership development approach that matched the complexity, ethics and systems thinking required for a sustainable future.
“My paradigm had shifted. I knew we needed a different kind of leadership for sustainability – not the kind I saw in traditional executive environments.”
Why Coaching — and Why Wise Goose?
Daniella wasn’t initially looking to become a coach. What she wanted was to bring a coaching mindset into her leadership. Her work was all about change; coaching, she realised, is also about change.
She explored many coach‑training programmes but didn’t connect with any of them.
“Wise Goose was the only course that took sustainability and ethics seriously. It was holistic. It was aligned with what I believed leadership needs to be – in business and beyond.”
The Wise Goose syllabus “jumped off the page”. It spoke directly to her values and offered the systemic, psychologically grounded approach she was searching for.
Training as a Coach: Insights, Practice and Transformation
During the programme, Daniella began supporting the Selfridges HR team with executive coaching. Her first clients were senior leaders inside her own organisation, a surprise opportunity that quickly accelerated her learning.
“It was a real eye‑opener. I could immediately put what we were learning into practice. It helped me as a coach and it helped me shift my own leadership style.”
Key shifts she describes:
From directive leader → coaching leader
She became someone who leads through powerful questions, spacious conversation and the co‑creation of solutions.
Deep listening
Daniella says this is one of the most profound skills she gained, and one she believes leaders everywhere need.
“Leaders rarely listen deeply. We’re trained to listen in order to respond. Coaching taught me a different quality of listening.”
Seeing systems, not just individuals
Wise Goose’s integration of sustainability, ethics and systemic thinking helped her understand the pressures and unseen dynamics at play, especially in boardrooms. She recalls a Wise Goose “Ethics in the Boardroom” simulation that made a lasting impression:
“As the CEO in the role‑play, the pressure to conform to expectations — to maximise profit — was incredible. It showed how easily people fall into roles. That insight has stayed with me, especially now that I spend so much time in boardrooms.”
A Ripple Effect Across Selfridges
Daniella talked about her Wise Goose experience enthusiastically inside the business. Others became curious. Soon, more people from Selfridges Group were enrolling.
“I was quite evangelical about it! I talked to people who I knew would connect with a more holistic approach to leadership.”
This led to one of the projects she is most proud of: the creation of an informal leadership group exploring values and culture, initially known as the “Values Group” and later renamed Culture Club.
They wanted to discuss the things that usually stayed beneath the surface, how values show up, where they fall short, and how leadership behaviour shapes culture.
Using Wise Goose facilitation tool in the C‑suite
Daniella introduced the fishbowl technique, learned on the programme, into a session with the Executive Committee.
Staff sat in the inner circle discussing organisational values while executives listened silently from the outside.
“It flattened the power dynamics. It encouraged deep listening. It brought honesty into the room. It worked incredibly well.”
She continues to use the fishbowl method today.
Eight Years Later: How Coaching Lives in Her Leadership
Now at Ahold Delhaize, leading global sustainability strategy across complex international operations, Daniella still draws daily on what she learned at Wise Goose.
She uses coaching conversations with her team, peers and senior leaders.
She continues to coach women across the business.
She brings systemic awareness and reflective practice into boardrooms.
And she still works with a coach herself, something she calls “an absolute gift.”
“Coaching is embedded in who I am. It fundamentally shifted how I lead.”
Advice for Future Wise Goose Students
Daniella offers warm, practical advice for people thinking of joining a Wise Goose Course:
“Look at the prospectus — it should jump off the page if it’s for you.”
“Speak to alumni. That’s what convinced me.”
“Jump in with both feet. You will make mistakes, but that’s how you learn.”
“If you want to lead or see the world differently, this programme is rare — and much needed.”
A Final Reflection
Daniella describes Wise Goose as “second to none” – a programme that brings together depth, ethics, creativity and community.
“The contributors, the supervision, the quality of the teaching, everyone brought something powerful to my thinking. I would wholeheartedly recommend Wise Goose.”
Her story illustrates exactly what makes the Wise Goose approach distinctive: a coaching education that develops leaders capable of navigating complexity, living their values, and influencing systems with clarity, courage and compassion.
Bullying is not always what we imagine. It isn’t confined to playground scuffles or overt hostility.
More often, it hides in plain sight, in jokes that cut, silence that excludes and cultures that excuse harm as humour.
At Wise Goose, we see its impact in coaching and supervision: leaders and change‑makers grappling with the subtle ways harm is normalised in workplaces, communities and institutions. As conversations about wellbeing at work grow louder, the need for coaches to engage ethically and systemically with bullying is more pressing than ever.
Ten years ago, I wrote a blog about silent bullying. To my surprise, it became one of the most‑read posts on the Wise Goose site. For coaches, supervisors and leaders, this raises difficult questions about responsibility and how hard it can be to find the courage to speak out and intervene.
I’ve been thinking about writing this ever since Nigel Farage’s bullying hit the news. Then as I started to work on it, to my surprise, a moment from my own childhood, forgotten for over sixty years surfaced.
I was about six or seven years old. A crowd of children gathered around a small boy in the playground, I remember his name – Robin. There was no pushing or shoving, but there was a cruel edge to the name calling. I was shy, a bit of a wallflower, but the energy of the group drew me in. Joining the mob felt exciting. For once I was part of things.
Then Robin started crying.
And inside me, something shifted, a recognition ‘this isn’t fun’. A flicker of shame I wasn’t old enough to name. I remember it vividly, Robin’s eyes filling with tears, the sense of wrongness.
If I met him today, I would apologise.
That experience taught me something, bullying is rarely about “bad people.” More often, it is about ordinary people. Sometimes we join in. Sometimes we look away. But all of it leaves a mark.
This post is for coaches, supervisors, and leaders ready to look at how bullying and so‑called “banter” show up in adult life and workplaces, why it matters for ethical coaching, and how we can respond with courage, clarity and care.
Bullying Leaves Long Shadows
Research confirms what many adults know intuitively: bullying’s impact doesn’t end when school does. Studies show long‑term effects including depression, anxiety, sleep problems, stress symptoms and social withdrawal, and these impacts can last years. Government data links bullying with poorer academic outcomes, reduced wellbeing and difficulties forming relationships.
Bullying, even when “only words,” even when dismissed as teasing, is a form of systematic abuse of power. It leaves deep imprints; on individuals, and on the cultures they later go on to work in and lead.
For coaches, this means that what presents in coaching conversations as “confidence issues” or “not fitting in at work” or brittle defensiveness and arrogance may be the long shadow of bullying. Being alert to that possibility can shape how we listen, frame questions and hold the client’s story.
When Harm Is Disguised as Humour: Banter or Bullying at Work?
One of the most common ways bullying persists is through “humour.”
Variations of “It was just banter” show up everywhere; in workplaces, schools, and, as we’ve seen recently, in national political discourse.
But research is clear:
Banter relies on equality, consent and mutual respect.
Bullying is defined by power imbalance, repetition and harm.
Antibullying organisations emphasise that the “banter defence” is often used to brush aside accountability. BulliesOut points out that “banter becomes bullying” the moment the targeted person feels wounded, regardless of intent. And a major UK report found that 51% of respondents believe “banter” is regularly used as an excuse for bullying.
For coaches, this matters. When a client uses humour to downplay harm, we must listen to what’s unspoken: discomfort, evasion, or a desire not to see themselves as someone who causes pain.
Humour is never neutral. It can bond, or it can bruise.
“Playground Banter” in the News
Recent reporting about Nigel Farage’s school years at Dulwich College offers a public example of how powerful the “banter” label can be.
In December 2025, 25 former pupils and one ex‑teacher signed an open letter urging Farage to acknowledge and apologise for racist behaviour they say occurred during his school years. By January 2026, the number had grown to 34. These individuals dispute Farage’s characterisation of his behaviour as “banter”, describing instead repeated taunts, slurs and targeted hostility. Farage may be blind to this, but we need to name it: Bullying.
Farage’s responses lean heavily on:
lack of malicious intent
the cultural norms of the time
childhood misjudgement
reframing behaviour as “playground banter”
This pattern of denial, minimisation and humour is used across society to avoid responsibility, clients who cause harm often project a positive self‑image by adopting similar narratives. Coaches and leaders need to understand these dynamics if they are to avoid colluding with them.
Bullying Is Systemic, Not Just Personal: Why Workplace Bullying Is a System Issue
Bullying doesn’t appear out of nowhere; it is frequently a system problem. Research shows that structural and cultural conditions strongly shape whether harmful behaviour takes root. Bullying is often a symptom of toxic leadership, weak psychological safety, unclear expectations and poor accountability, not simply individual behaviour. A major systematic review similarly links bullying risk to role ambiguity, high job demands, organisational pressure, authoritarian or laissez‑faire leadership.
Bullying is rarely just a “people problem” this is why coaching must be systemic. We don’t just help clients adjust, we help them understand the forces shaping them, and the forces they help reinforce. At Wise Goose, we place this systemic lens at the heart of our coaching training, because without it we risk treating symptoms and leaving harmful structures untouched.
How Common Is Workplace Bullying?
Recent UK data paints a challenging picture. In late 2025, UK Google searches for “work bullying” rose by 114%. A 2024 CIPD study found that while 81% of employers believe they manage bullying effectively, only 36% of employees who reported issues felt their concerns had been resolved. I’ve been there myself; when I attempted to raise concerns, leaders looked the other way. A national Skills and Employment Survey indicated 14% of UK workers experience workplace abuse annually, with women and LGBTQ+ workers facing significantly higher risks.
This reminds us that bullying is not distributed evenly. People who are marginalised or stereotyped for their gender, race, sexuality, age or disability are often more exposed to risk. Any honest conversation about workplace bullying must include questions of power, diversity and inclusion.
This is the landscape coaches work within.
Clients may come into sessions confused, ashamed, unsure if what they’re experiencing “counts”, or fearful of repercussions if they speak out. Others may not initially recognise their own behaviours as harmful.
When a Client Is Being Bullied
When clients bring experiences of bullying, the coach’s role is to provide:
Validation: naming what is happening without minimisation.
Clarity: helping clients understand systemic factors, so they don’t internalise blame.
Support for boundaries: exploring what safety, dignity and agency look like.
Ethical awareness: navigating organisational processes without retraumatising the client.
Bullying erodes confidence and identity. Coaching provides a place to rebuild both.
These are the kinds of conversations we routinely hold in Wise Goose training rooms and supervision circles: how to stay human, grounded and ethical in our work.
When the Client Is the Bully
This is perhaps the most challenging scenario coaches face. Clients who bully rarely see themselves as bullies. They tend to:
minimise: “It was just a joke”
deflect: “They’re oversensitive”
justify: “That’s just how leadership works here”
normalise: “Everyone talks like this”
Many people who bully are driven by insecurity, past hurt or learned behaviour. If they are open to coaching it can help them develop insight, empathy and new ways of relating. But in workplaces where aggressive high‑performers are tolerated, harm continues if there is no accountability.
This is where collusion can quietly slip in. I’ve seen it in supervision: coaches hold back from challenging a client because they don’t want to damage rapport.
The Wise Goose approach – echoing insights from the Silent Bullying post – is clear: Coaches cannot sit on the fence when someone’s wellbeing is at stake. Our duty of care stretches beyond me‑and‑my‑client.
Support without accountability isn’t coaching. It’s collusion.
What Coaches Need to Do: Practical Ways Forward
Bring Courage to Reflection: Help clients examine the impact of their behaviour, not just their intentions.
Maintain a Systemic Perspective: Situate individual behaviour within organisational culture, power dynamics and structural pressures.
Resist Minimisation: Challenge “banter” with gentle but firm curiosity.
Use Supervision Wisely: Explore discomfort, biases and blind spots to avoid collusion.
Anchor Change in Action: Insight must lead to new behaviours. Accountability is one of coaching’s superpowers.
A Final Reflection: Tiny Acts of Integrity
Bullying persists because noticing, naming, and intervening it is a risk; silence feels safer. The story of Robin surfaced after decades because it encapsulates that early moment: knowing something is wrong, wanting to belong, and choosing, or in my case, failing to act with care.
Coaching is not about perfection. It is about presence, courage, and a willingness to look honestly at harm, even when it comes wrapped in humour.
We cannot change what we refuse to name, and we cannot transform what we refuse to see. And sometimes, the first tiny step toward integrity is simply this: slow down, pause, notice the harm and choose not to join in.
If this post has stirred something in you, a memory, a question, or a sense that you’d like to respond more courageously when harm shows up, you’re not alone. At Wise Goose we create reflective, supportive spaces where coaches and leaders can explore the ethics, systems and human stories that sit beneath bullying and “banter”. If you’d like to deepen your practice, you’re very welcome to join us on one of our training programmes, in coaching or supervision, and keep this kind of honest, values‑led conversation alive in your work.
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