Coaching philosophy
This is what shapes how I practise as a coach: what I hold myself to, what I believe, and where the boundaries sit.
"Coaching is a transformative journey where you discover your true potential."
ICF · International Coaching FederationA coaching philosophy is a set of values, beliefs and principles that define how a coach makes that real. This is my coaching philosophy.
My 40-year career leading people through complex change whilst living in seven different countries and working in many more, has given me deep understanding of international corporate life. That much is clear from my CV. What is less visible is the personal journey behind it: a challenging childhood, then coming out as gay, then years spent working with undiagnosed ADHD.
That journey, moving between countries, languages and cultural contexts where the rules of communication, hierarchy, tolerance and trust all work differently, formed the basis of who I am as a coach.
These are the values I hold myself to, grounded in the ICF Core Competencies, the global standard for what good coaching looks like:
Honesty and integrity. I am honest in what I say and with myself, and expect the same in others. I hold to both the ICF and EMCC Codes of Ethics in full, and confidentiality is absolute.
An open mind. I stay genuinely curious about the person in front of me, and aware enough of my own blind spots to keep them out of the room.
Clear agreements. I agree with a coachee what we're working on, and I'm upfront from the start about what coaching is and isn't. I revisit that agreement as things change, coaching isn't something done to someone.
Trust and safety. I build a relationship on mutual respect and trust, bring real empathy, and hold a space safe enough for honesty.
Full presence. I stay properly there, not half-listening, comfortable with silence, comfortable not having the answer yet.
Real listening. I hear what's said, and what's underneath it: tone, energy, the things that repeat across sessions.
Questions that open things up. I offer the right challenge at the right moment, not answers handed over.
Turning insight into action. I make sure the work leads somewhere. Insight alone counts for little.
The full framework, the ICF Core Competencies, is publicly available for anyone who wants the detail behind this.
Alongside this, two things matter to me personally.
Positive intention. I assume good faith and expect the same back.
A sense of humour. Sessions can be honest and often challenging, and I bring humour into them anyway. It makes the harder parts easier.
Everyone is unique. Who we are today comes from a lifetime of cultural immersion and experience, both professional and personal, and that shapes our expectations, our definition of success, and how we think and behave.
"The problem is not the problem. The problem is the response to the problem."
Dr. Tom Ferguson · 2011That shift in perspective, from the surface event to the underlying pattern, is where real change begins but is often where people get stuck. The pattern can be hard to see from the inside, or uncomfortable to look at directly. But I believe everyone already holds the answers they are looking for, if they are willing to look.
"At the river bank, there is life that cannot exist in the water nor on the land alone: magic happens at the edge."
Every person's context is different: their culture, their history, their way of thinking. What a coachee carries and what I bring meet at the edge between us. Something new takes shape there, something neither of us could have made alone.
Whilst we cannot know each other's "back story", coaching can bring those stories close together, and it is at this edge that the magic happens.
I am not a therapist, a counsellor or a psychologist. What I offer instead is space and time to think, where new perspectives and possibilities can grow.
That offer is grounded in Carl Rogers' person-centred conditions, congruence, empathy and unconditional positive regard, which shape how I hold the relationship, and Nancy Kline's Time to Think, which shapes how I listen.
The work may not always be comfortable. Change rarely is.
None of this hands a coachee something new from outside. It unlocks what was already there, discovered together at the edge between us.
Theoretical grounding
Person-centred practice rooted in Rogers' core conditions: congruence, empathy, and unconditional positive regard. Extended through Nancy Kline's Time to Think, systemic thinking, challenge-based approaches, and direct experience of what people are capable of under pressure.
In practice
Safety first, always. Then honest attention. Then the kind of direct challenge that only means something when it comes from someone who has been in genuinely hard places and believes, from experience, that the person in front of them can move.
The practice
Coaching operates through Dan Margetts Coaching, working toward ICF and EMCC accreditation, grounded in the Henley PCEC and the ICF Core Competency Model.
Four things that make the difference
Drawn throughout a career to problems that have not been solved before: building HSBC's first enterprise intranet, leading global programmes from scratch, launching businesses where no market yet existed. In coaching, that same energy turns toward each person's potential. Most people already know the answer. The work is helping them find the clarity, confidence and momentum to act on it.
Leading people through change across many cultures and countries builds a particular attentiveness to what actually moves someone, as distinct from what ought to move them. What drives a person in one cultural context can mean something entirely different in another. In coaching, rather than connecting people to someone else's vision, the work is helping each coachee find their own clarity about what they want and what drives them. That attentiveness, built across forty years, translates directly into the coaching room.
Late-diagnosed ADHD, which has become a professional asset. When engaged on a problem, patterns across complex systems become visible quickly, ideas come fast, and a curiosity that is genuinely hard to switch off takes over. In coaching, where every coachee is different and no two conversations follow the same path, that translates to real interest in each coachee's world, an instinct for what is not being said, and a pull toward what might be possible. There is also particular empathy for coachees driven by novelty, frustrated by routine, or struggling to find the right environment for how they think.
Navigating identity and authenticity across professional environments in many countries and cultures, over a long career, was not straightforward. Coming out as gay in professional contexts in the UK in the 1980s and 90s, when the professional and personal risks were real, and then building on the confidence that I gained from that experience in the many countries I lived and worked in subsequently, built a deep sense of cultural and self-awareness. In the coaching room, that translates into a genuine empathy for anyone working through questions of who they are, how they show up, and whether they feel able to bring their whole self to the work.
Get in touch
A no-obligation conversation to explain the process, answer any questions and see if there is a fit.