Executive Coaching

I use the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition as a way of understanding how people actually develop capability over time, and as a guide for how coaching adds value at different stages of that development. The model describes progression from unconscious incompetence, through conscious incompetence and conscious competence, towards unconscious competence. Rather than treating this as a linear journey with a fixed endpoint, I use it as a cyclical process. Changes in role, context, pressure, or ambition routinely move people back through the cycle. Effective coaching recognises this and adapts accordingly. At the early stage, where limitations or blind spots are not yet visible, coaching focuses on discovery. The value here is not instruction, but awareness: surfacing assumptions, patterns of thinking, and behaviours that are currently unexamined but influential. As awareness increases and gaps become clearer, individuals enter a phase of conscious incompetence. Coaching at this point supports clarification; helping people make sense of feedback, distinguish signal from noise, and develop an accurate understanding of what matters, why it matters, and where effort should be directed. When capability is present but not yet reliable, coaching shifts towards unlocking. This stage is less about learning new skills and more about removing constraints: confidence under pressure, decision-making, prioritisation, and the translation of knowledge into action in real conditions. The next phase focuses on application and harnessing. Coaching supports consistency, transfer, and performance across varying contexts, recognising that competence does not automatically lead to effective execution without deliberate practice and reflection. At higher levels of fluency, often described as unconscious competence, coaching does not stop. Instead, it focuses on sustaining and evolving performance. This includes preventing skill decay, challenging habitual patterns, and deliberately introducing disruption to support continued growth and adaptability. Across all stages, the value of coaching lies in aligning the coaching approach to the individual’s current relationship with their own capability. The process is not about accelerating people through a model, but about applying the right form of challenge, support, and reflection at the right time, so development is both effective and durable.