Trust is everything in the coach-client relationship. In this solo episode, Meg explores “The Trust Triangle,” a three-dimensional framework that reframes trust in coaching beyond simply the coach-client relationship. Drawing on client stories and 17+ years of teaching coaches, Meg breaks down the three interconnected dimensions of trust that determine whether coaching truly creates transformation: the relational trust between coach and client, the client’s trust in themselves, and the client’s trust in the coaching process. You’ll learn practical strategies for assessing, strengthening, and protecting each dimension, along with an understanding of how these strategies provide coaches with a powerful diagnostic tool when sessions feel stuck. Join us to learn more!

Show Highlights:

1. Understanding three dimensions of trust:
2. The trust between coach and client
3. Mutual respect and trust are built with presence, consistency, confidentiality, appropriate boundaries, and honest authenticity.
4. Things that erode trust: breaking confidentiality, being inconsistent, focusing on our own needs, defensiveness, trying to fix or rescue a client, overfunctioning
5. Meg’s tips for applying these principles to build trust
6. The client’s trust in themselves
7. Fully stepping into the coaching process and moving from insight into action requires the client to trust themselves.
8. Building self-trust in your client happens when they fully access their inner knowledge, hold space to celebrate micro-wins, reframe failures as data, and normalize the “messy middle.”
9. Things that erode self-trust: a coach who gives advice, rescues a client from discomfort, and is too attached to the client’s success
10. Meg’s tips for building the client’s self-trust
11. Trust in the coaching process
12. It’s a challenge to leave our expertise at the door and let the client be the expert in their life.
13. Building process-trust depends on how we set the stage with clear expectations, help create early wins, make the “invisible” become visible, and be transparent about the process.
14. Things that erode a client’s trust in the process: meandering sessions, abstract/philosophical coaching full of promises that can’t be kept, and having no structure or clear coaching agreement
15. Meg’s tips for building trust in the coaching process (Begin with a clear coaching agreement!)
16. The trust triangle gives the coach a new perspective (a measuring stick) to explore and be curious about what’s going on with the client. Meg explains how to use the triangle as a diagnostic tool.
17. Hear Meg’s practical strategies for leaning into each leg of the trust triangle through rapport-building, reflecting wisdom, and connecting insights to action.
18. Today’s key takeaway: “Trust isn’t singular in coaching—it’s triangular. Your job is to pay attention to all three dimensions.”

Resources:

Mentioned in this episode: STaR Coach Show, Episode 124 and STaR Coach Show, Episode 131

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Mentioned in this episode:

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