From Doing Coaching to Being a Coach: Why Maturity Matters in a World of Complexity

An Empower World reflection inspired by Empower World's Coaching and Leadership Podcast conversation with Professor David Clutterbuck, 'Coaching in Complexity: Why Maturity, Systems & Presence Matter'

The world in which leaders and coaches are working in today are no longer relatively simple. It's complex, fast-moving, interconnected - and at times - chaotic. The questions people ask are rarely neat. The systems they sit within are layered, political, emotional and constantly shifting. This means finding a new way of being to navigate through the short and longer-term challenges experienced today.

The old desire for certainty, control and “right answers” is proving increasingly inadequate. As one of the pioneers of the global coaching profession, Professor David Clutterbuck shares a perspective that feels both timely and a challenge to the profession: “Becoming a more mature coach is not about acquiring more tools and techniques... It’s about letting go of more. And it’s about achieving far more by doing far less.”

David’s research and decades of observation point in a direction of coaching maturity. As coaches build upon their experiences, knowledge and wisdom, something subtle but profound happens: support shifts from doing coaching to being a coach.

When Complexity Rises, Technique Is No Longer Enough

In the early days of organisational coaching, much of the work focused on individuals: performance, goals, confidence, and work-life balance. Linear issues could often be addressed with linear thinking.

Today, clients are navigating systems within systems: teams, cultures, power dynamics, uncertainty, rapid change, and increasingly, the impact of technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The challenges we face today cannot be solved with linear thinking as systems become far more intertwined and complex.

Leaders are under pressure - not just to perform - but to adapt, hold ambiguity, create psychological safety, and work collaboratively in environments where control is often an illusion. David explains many coaches and leaders were trained for a world that no longer exists.

The temptation, when faced with complexity, is to try to control more, intervene more, and “fix” faster. Yet paradoxically, this often leads to less impact, not more. Mature coaching calls for a different quality of presence.

From “Doing Change” to Creating the Conditions for Change

One of the most powerful distinctions David offered is this: "We are moving away from coaches who try to bring about change, towards coaches who create the clarity in which people and systems can change themselves."

This is a profound shift. The mature coach becomes a holder of space, a 'mirror', a systemic observer. They support their partners identify their own patterns, assumptions, relationships, wider unconscious influences as well as constraints and possibilities more clearly. And by doing so, empowers individuals, teams, organisations to make choices that they own with confidence.

Letting Go as a Developmental Practice

David’s research into coach maturity shows that growth is not simply additive; it is subtractive. Which can mean letting go of:

1. The need to be helpful in visible ways
2. The attachment to outcomes in the moment
3. The urge to demonstrate expertise
4. The comfort of familiar models when they no longer fit
5. The belief that more intervention equals more value

And instead, what develops is:

1. Deeper listening to the system, not just the individual or the team or even the organisation
2. Greater trust in the client’s own sense-making
3. The capacity to hold uncertainty without rushing to resolution
4. The courage to work with what is emerging rather than what is planned
5. A presence that allows insight to arise rather than be manufactured

This is where coaching becomes less about performance and more about wisdom.

Why This Matters Now

As AI becomes increasingly capable of replicating structured coaching processes, summarising conversations and even simulating empathy, there is awareness about what will differentiate human coaches: not technique, but their unique presence, maturity and systemic awareness.

The future of the profession will not be defined by who has the best model, but by who can:

1. Hold complexity without collapsing into control
2. See the system, not just the symptom
3. Trust emergence rather than force direction
4. Create clarity without imposing certainty
5. Be with clients in a way that enables them to think for themselves

At Empower World, this resonates deeply with our philosophy of developing coaches and leaders who work not only with skills, but with being. Who understands that influence comes as much from how we show up as from what we say. And that in a world of increasing complexity, the most powerful intervention is often the presence of a coach or leader itself.

As human beings - one of our core human needs is to be connected with another. It is 'hard-wired' into our way of being.

Perhaps the reflective question for us all is: Where might your own growth, as a coach or leader, lie? ...Not in adding more, but in letting go, and trusting what can emerge when you do less more consciously? What is possible?

Be Empowered

www.empower-world.com

You can hear the full conversation with Podcast guest David Clutterbuck on the Empower World Coaching and Leadership Podcast Episode 247 - Coaching in Complexity: Why Maturity, Systems & Presence Matter via the podcast links below:

YouTube: ------ https://bit.ly/YT-Podcast-EP-247

Direct Link: ---- https://bit.ly/Podcast-EP-247

Spotify: ------- https://bit.ly/SP-Podcast-EP-247

iTunes: -------- https://bit.ly/IT-Podcast-EP-247

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