Assess Your Coaching Leadership Style and Learn How to Trust Yourself at Work
Your coaching leadership style should be yours—not copied from someone else. Learn how to assess your natural strengths, understand when you lose confidence, and stop second-guessing yourself as a leader. The gap isn't in your skills. It's in trusting your expertise under pressure.
You've been promoted to a leadership position because you're good at your work. But now you're leading people, and nobody taught you how to do that.
You're trying to figure out your coaching leadership style. Should you be more directive? More hands-off? How do you know when to step in and when to let your team figure it out?
And underneath all of that: How do you trust yourself when you're not sure if you're doing this right?
What Is a Coaching Leadership Style?
A coaching leadership style focuses on developing your team members' skills and autonomy instead of just telling them what to do. You're asking questions, providing guidance, and helping people grow—not micromanaging or directing every decision.
This approach works well when you have team members who are capable but need support to reach their full potential. It builds trust, creates psychological safety, and develops your team's ability to think independently.
But here's what nobody tells you: There's no single "right" way to coach. Your coaching leadership style should be yours—built on your strengths, adapted to your team's needs, not copied from someone else.
The Problem with Traditional Leadership Advice
Most leadership training asks you to adopt someone else's style. To be more assertive, more commanding, more "executive."
But that doesn't work if it's not authentic to who you are. When you try to lead like someone else, you lose access to your natural strengths—your empathy, your attention to detail, your ability to listen deeply.
And here's what happens: You start second-guessing yourself. You defer to more senior leaders even though you know your team better. You over-prepare for conversations because you're not sure if your instincts are right.
That's not a personal failing. That's what happens when you're trying to fit into a leadership model that wasn't designed for you.
How to Assess Your Coaching Leadership Style
Instead of copying someone else's approach, start by understanding what already works for you.
Where do you feel most confident as a leader?
Notice the situations where you trust your instincts. Maybe it's in one-on-ones where you can listen deeply. Maybe it's in problem-solving sessions where you help your team think through challenges. Maybe it's in giving feedback or facilitating team decisions.
Those moments show you where your natural coaching strengths are.
Where do you shrink or second-guess yourself?
Now notice where you lose confidence. Is it in meetings with senior leadership? When you need to be more directive? When you're dealing with conflict or difficult conversations?
These aren't weaknesses to fix. They're information about the situations that trigger status anxiety or push you outside your comfort zone. Understanding them helps you develop tools for those specific moments.
What do you value most in leadership?
Your coaching leadership style should reflect your values. Do you prioritize psychological safety? Growth and development? Efficiency and results? Collaboration and inclusion?
There's no wrong answer. But when your leadership style aligns with your values, you trust yourself more. You stop wondering if you're doing it "right" and start making decisions that feel authentic.
The Six Coaching Leadership Styles
Leadership research identifies six coaching leadership styles. Understanding these can help you assess which approach feels most natural to you—and which situations might call for adapting your style.
1. Visionary: You paint a clear picture of where the team is going and why it matters. You inspire people toward a shared goal.
2. Democratic: You involve your team in decision-making. You value everyone's input and build consensus.
3. Affiliative: You prioritize relationships and emotional connection. You create a sense of belonging and support.
4. Coaching: You focus on individual development. You help people identify their goals and build the skills to reach them.
5. Pacesetting: You set high standards and lead by example. You demonstrate what excellence looks like.
6. Commanding: You give clear direction in high-stakes or crisis situations. You tell people what to do when there's no time for consensus.
Here's what matters: Effective leaders use different styles in different situations. You don't have to pick one and stick with it.
Learning to Trust Your Coaching Leadership Style
The struggle isn't figuring out which style you "should" use. The struggle is trusting yourself to make that choice in the moment.
Here's how to build that trust:
Stop over-preparing. When you script every conversation or decision, you're telling yourself you can't handle the situation as it unfolds. That undermines your confidence. Instead, prepare with frameworks—flexible structures that help you respond to what actually happens, not what you think might happen.
Name the systemic factors. You're not imagining it—there are real power dynamics at play. If you defer to authority or shrink around senior leaders, that's not because you're not a good leader. That's because you're navigating systems that weren't designed with your leadership style in mind. Knowing that helps you trust yourself more.
Focus on your team, not your performance. Every time you start worrying about whether you're leading "right," redirect your attention to your team. What do they need in this moment? What will serve them best? When you center your team instead of yourself, your natural coaching instincts become clearer.
Build your toolkit. You don't need to be perfect. You need tools for the specific situations where you lose confidence. If you struggle with giving direct feedback, practice frameworks for that. If you panic in conflict, develop grounding techniques to stay present. If you lose your voice with executives, work on speaking with clarity under pressure.
Your Coaching Leadership Style Is Already Working
Here's what I see in leaders who struggle with trusting themselves: You're already doing good work. Your team respects you. People come to you for guidance.
But you're so focused on whether you're doing it "right" that you can't see what's actually working.
The gap isn't between where you are and where you "should" be. The gap is between your expertise and your ability to trust that expertise in high-pressure moments.
You don't need to become a different kind of leader. You need tools that help you access your natural coaching strengths even when status anxiety shows up. Even when you're around dominant personalities or senior leaders. Even when the stakes feel high.
That's not about fixing yourself. It's about liberating the leader you already are.
What to Do Next
Start by noticing your patterns. Where do you trust yourself? Where do you shrink? What situations trigger that second-guessing?
Then build tools for those specific moments. Not generic leadership advice—personalized frameworks that address what's actually happening for you.
Because here's the truth: Your coaching leadership style doesn't need to look like anyone else's. It needs to work for you and your team.
And when you stop trying to lead like someone else and start trusting your own approach, that's when your leadership actually becomes effective.
Not because you've perfected some external standard. But because you're finally leading from a place of authenticity and confidence in who you already are.
Want to Know Your Patterns?
If you're wondering why speaking with confidence feels so elusive in certain moments—why you're brilliant with your team but tongue-tied with executives, why you can write clearly but speak in circles—it's not random.
There are specific patterns at play. And once you see them, you can shift them.
I created a free assessment to help you identify exactly how status anxiety shows up for you and what to do about it.
Take the Confidence Style Assessment →
In 2 minutes, you'll discover:
Your specific communication pattern under pressure
Why certain rooms trigger your anxiety while others don't
Practical tools designed for your natural style (not generic "power poses")
How to access your expertise even when your nervous system is activated
