There’s a principle worth returning to again and again in career conversations — one that’s easy to state and surprisingly hard to actually live by:
The art is in never doing more than they are.
If you find yourself doing more thinking, more problem-solving, or more effort than your client in the room, something has gone off track. Not necessarily gone wrong — but off track from where the real work happens.
Why we fall into this trap
It’s rarely a lapse in skill. It’s usually the opposite: you’re good at this. You can see where the conversation is heading. You can see the solution taking shape three exchanges before your client gets there. And because you want to help, and because you can help, you reach for it.
That instinct is generous. It’s also, often, the wrong move.
A moment this might look like
Picture a session where a client is talking through a career change they feel stuck on. Partway through, you notice the shape of an option they haven’t named yet — maybe a way of reframing what’s holding them back, maybe a next step that seems obvious from where you’re sitting.
The pull is to offer it. To say “have you thought about—” and hand it over.
The alternative is to notice that pull, and instead ask a question that gives them room to find it themselves — even if it takes longer, even if they arrive somewhere slightly different from where you’d have taken them.
That second option is harder. It’s also the one that builds something in the client that the first one doesn’t.
What’s actually at stake when we do too much
- They don’t build the muscle they need for next time. If you solve it for them today, they’re no better equipped for the version of this problem that shows up next month, in a different context, without you in the room.
- Ownership of the decision quietly shifts from them to you. Even a well-intentioned suggestion can turn “their choice” into “your idea they went along with.”
- You never find out what they’re actually capable of. If you step in before they’ve had the chance to work it through, you’ve foreclosed the moment that would have shown you — and them — their own capability.
- Their effort is the whole point. Not a means to get to your solution faster. The struggle is the developmental work.
The real skill
It’s tempting to think the skill in career coaching is having the right answer at the right moment. It isn’t. The skill is noticing — in real time, mid-conversation — when you’re about to do their thinking for them, and choosing to step back instead.
That noticing is a discipline. It doesn’t come naturally, and it doesn’t stay easy just because you’ve practised it before. Every session offers a fresh version of the same temptation.
Learning to hold back — and knowing when — is central to the practice we develop on our Level 6 Diploma in Career Guidance and Development. For more short reflections like this, follow Sonder Training Group on LinkedIn.
