Unlock the Best
Version of You

Many clients arrive in coaching with the same mindset they bring to work: measure, evaluate, improve, fix. They often speak about themselves as if they are projects. “I need to be more productive.” “I should communicate better.” “I’m not doing well enough.” As coaches, we recognize this frame. We’ve seen it countless times. And if we’re honest, it can be tempting, even normal, to unintentionally join it.

What most of us don’t realise is that so much of leadership happens through conversation. Not through presentations or emails. But through the living exchange between people, where we meet each other and where something new can emerge that neither person saw coming.

A friend recently told me: “I asked ChatGPT to create reflective practices for my leadership development, and it gave me excellent questions. They were thoughtful, well-structured, and useful. Why would I need anything else?”

It’s a fair question. And it highlights something important we need to understand about the AI vs human coaching debate and how development actually works.

We love insights. We buy books, listen to podcasts, and go to courses for insights. They can feel energizing, clarifying, and sometimes even life-changing. In coaching conversations, leadership programmes, or retreats, people often experience powerful realizations. And yet, weeks later, we often notice that although we understood and believed a change was important to make, somehow we are doing the same things again. This can feel disappointing or confusing, and it’s easy to determine that we simply lack discipline or commitment.

What I’ve noticed in reading and in conversations with clients and colleagues is that much leadership behaviour change effort focuses on knowledge and behaviour. Communicate better. Delegate more. Set clearer boundaries. Be confident. Stay calm under pressure. Listen more deeply. While intended to be helpful, this approach is often disheartening. We realise that all of these matter. But for many people, there comes a moment when they realise: “I know what to do… and I still don’t or can’t do it.”

Many of us live more of our lives on automatic pilot than we realize. We wake, work, manage, react, cope. We build routines, systems, shortcuts. Many are useful. Habits save energy. They help us function. But developing self-awareness means beginning to notice what those habits have quietly become. At some stage, habits begin to shape our identity.
We find ourselves saying: “That’s just the way I am.” “I always do this.” “I can’t change.” This is rarely true. It simply means we haven’t yet looked beneath the habit.