Spot recurring reactions across situations so you can name the trigger-response pattern, using a guided worksheet grounded in behavior tracking.
There's a worksheet with six specific scenarios — each activating a different kind of pressure — where you describe both what you'd do and what you'd feel. The patterns across your six responses are usually more revealing than any single answer. Would you be open to completing it before we meet?
A VP of engineering handles crisis incidents and organizational ambiguity with apparent steadiness. But when a peer challenges her judgment in a meeting or her manager questions a decision, she shuts down entirely - stops contributing, goes quiet, processes alone afterward. She knows the pattern exists but hasn't examined where it comes from or why it doesn't appear in other high-pressure contexts.
Assign as pre-session writing. 'I want you to complete six specific scenarios in writing - describe both what you'd do and what you'd feel in each. The scenarios are designed to activate different kinds of pressure, not the same kind. Write the automatic response first - not what you'd ideally do.' Don't preview the scenarios or her results will be curated. The honest first response is the data.
Compare her responses to scenarios 1 (public speech) and 5 (impossible task) against scenario 3 (direct personality criticism). If scenarios 1 and 5 produce calibrated, composed responses while scenario 3 produces shutdown, you have a specific pattern: pressure-from-the-situation is handled; pressure-from-another-person-about-her-self is not. That distinction is the coaching territory. Also notice scenario 2 (manager anger) - for many leaders, this is the hottest scenario.
Start with the scenario that produced the most different response from the others - not the most intense, the most different. Ask: 'What is it about this scenario that's different from the rest?' That question surfaces whether the client can articulate the pattern herself before you name it. Then: 'When you look across all six, what do the scenarios you handled most composedly have in common?' Work from strength before examining the collapse.
If scenarios 2 and 3 (manager anger, personality criticism) produce responses that describe significant shame - not just discomfort but self-erasure, self-blame, or intense self-criticism - that may indicate a deeper pattern than coaching alone addresses. Severity: moderate. Stay in coaching territory by working with the behavioral pattern; don't pursue the origins of the shame response.
A senior program manager is in coaching at his organization's request following feedback that he is difficult to work with under pressure. He disputes the feedback - describes himself as calm and reasonable. His self-perception and the 360 data don't match. The six scenarios can surface discrepancy between how he thinks he responds and what he actually describes when prompted specifically.
Introduce as a calibration exercise, not a test: 'I'd like you to describe your actual response to six specific situations - behavioral and emotional. There's no right answer. We're trying to understand your patterns, not evaluate them.' The instruction about the 'automatic response first' is critical for this client - his tendency to self-edit is likely what created the feedback gap in the first place.
Watch whether his responses to the harder scenarios - 1, 2, 3 - match the self-description he gave you in prior sessions. If he writes calm, measured responses to all six, he may be editing even in the writing. Look specifically at the word count per scenario: if he writes 15 words for scenario 1 and 60 words for scenario 5, the extra words in scenario 5 often contain the reaction he's otherwise not reporting.
After he reads his responses back, ask: 'Which scenario produced the most honest answer?' That meta-question surfaces whether he knows he's been editing. Then: 'If a colleague completed this worksheet about you - what do you think their answers would look like for scenario 2?' The shift to third-person (someone else's view of him) sometimes breaks the self-editing pattern more effectively than staying first-person.
If there is a consistent and significant discrepancy between his self-report on the six scenarios and the 360 data, and he shows no curiosity about the gap - treats his self-report as definitively accurate and the 360 as others' misperception - the coaching work is significantly constrained. Severity: moderate. A client who cannot access others' experience of him has a limited coaching trajectory on this topic. Consider whether the organizational relationship with the sponsor needs to be part of the conversation.
A director of finance is highly effective at work and has described her personal life as 'compartmentalized.' She's come to coaching to work on leadership presence and communication with her team. Scenarios 4 and 6 - the dating scenario and the partner's simple question - are likely to produce significantly different responses from the professional scenarios. That contrast is the coaching data.
Assign between sessions with the instruction to write all six before reading any of them back. 'The scenarios move across contexts - some professional, some personal. Write each one as honestly as you can, then read across them together at the end.' The cross-context comparison is the point. Don't preview that you're looking for contrast - let the pattern surface in the writing.
Compare scenario 4 (first date, vulnerability) and scenario 6 (partner asks about your day) to scenarios 1 and 2 (professional performance contexts). If the professional scenarios produce confident, composed responses and the personal scenarios produce deflection, brevity, or descriptions of anxiety, she's telling you where the self-management pattern breaks down. The coaching question is whether that breakdown is affecting how she shows up at work as well.
Start with scenario 6 - the simplest one emotionally. 'Your partner asks about your day. What did you write?' If the response is short and logistical, ask: 'What would you need for that to be a different kind of conversation?' That question links the personal compartmentalization to the leadership presence work in a way that doesn't require labeling it as a personal problem. Then: 'How much of that shows up in how you respond when your team asks for your honest assessment of a situation?'
If scenarios 4 and 6 produce responses that describe significant discomfort with intimacy or vulnerability - avoidance, shutting down, performance of engagement without real presence - and this mirrors what she has described in professional contexts as 'keeping boundaries,' the coaching work is approaching territory that may benefit from parallel therapeutic support. Severity: low. Note the pattern without pursuing it clinically.
Client has strong self-knowledge but struggles to act on what they know
ADHDA client is unsure whether what they're experiencing is ADHD, depression, or both
LifeClient notices the internal commentary but has never examined what it assumes or whether it's accurate
