Measures of Session Success Are Not a Formality
As a mentor coach, I know that coaches often have a challenge with establishing measures of success. They ask about the session goal, but it is the measures of success that actually helps to align on deliverables from a conversation, so that a coach does not assume them but lets the client define them.
Some coaches, especially when they have shorter sessions, treat measures of success as a formality. They feel they’ve already spent so much time exploring the goal that they want to move quickly into supporting the client in finding answers so that the client walks away with solutions. This often leads them to wrap up the agreement part, even if they haven’t yet established clear measures of success.
Sometimes, the coaches I mentor admit that they avoid asking too many questions around the session agreement because these questions sound too formal. It can feel like there should be a checklist. Eventually, what happens many times is that either coaches ignore measures of success for the session and move forward intuitively or even define the measures of success for the client.
Measures of success are not only there for the coach to know how the session is going. Measures of success serve the client. We want the client to walk away from the session satisfied. What will make them satisfied to the right extent? This is what measures of success are about.
What is it that they want to take away from the conversation so that it feels useful to them, practical and actionable, and gives them some peace of mind or some support in addressing the issue they are exploring? They need to understand this in the first place, not us.
Measures of Session Success Set Up A Coaching Session For Success
We always assume as coaches that clients have the answers to all their questions. Clients do have the answers to all their questions. So what don’t they have then, if they have the answers?
Very often they don’t have the exact question that requires their answer. They don’t always know what is a specific question that is bothering them. Where do they need to arrive to call the situation resolved?
Once they are clear about measures of success, it’s a lot easier for them to arrive at the answers because they know what they want.
Coaching Skills and Coaching Mindset You Need to Apply
As coaching is systemic work, there’s not much point in addressing only the issue of measures of success by itself as if it were an isolated skill, because it’s not. It’s often related to the quality of presence and active listening skills. Sometimes a coach rushes the client, or a coach is distracted by their inner dialogue. They’re not staying in the present moment, and therefore they lose curiosity. Listening beneath the words is extremely important too. Deep listening often allows measurable and meaningful goals to emerge authentically. Measurable goals are sometimes elusive because the coach has not fully explored what matters most to the client, emotionally or relationally.
To me, the state of presence has clear somatic signals: you are relaxed but alert, in contact with your body, emotions, energy of the session. If you feel tension, it may signal an intense inner dialogue or certain expectations, distracting thoughts like “we are running out of time”, “we should already be working towards the resolution”, “we still haven’t got the measures of success”, “the client cannot articulate them because they don’t know what they want from this”.
Sometimes coaches do not hear or do not recognize or “accept” the measures of success that their client is sharing. Maybe they have their own expectations about what measures of success should look like for that particular session goal. When they don’t hear what they want to hear, and they miss what the client is communicating about the measures of success in their own ways, they may start to feel lost. This is about the ability to meet the client where they are, to really get curious about how they see the story and not trying to interpret.
This leads to another skill and common challenge with measures of success: the capacity to hold uncertainty and for how long a coach can hold this uncertainty. Sometimes coaches feel conflicted: should I serve the client or should I serve the session, should I keep a meaningful conversation with a client, exploring and discovering, or should I be narrowing this down to session goals?
Am I doing it right, or am I doing it wrong?
This inner dialogue is quite distracting, especially at the agreement-setting stage. Develop this capacity in order to let the client’s process fully unfold.
Measures of Session Success as a Relational Practice
Establishing measures of success is not a technical add-on to a coaching session, and it’s not a box to tick for credentials or assessments. It’s a relational practice that requires presence, patience, and a willingness to stay with not knowing a little bit longer.
Measures of success emerge when we truly listen, when we slow down enough to hear what matters to the client beneath the words, and when we trust that clarity will come from the client’s process, not from our urgency to move forward.
It takes two to tango. It’s very normal for a client not to know what they want from the session, and that’s why they come to a session. It’s normal for a coach to have emotional reactions. It’s very human.
Working with measures of success often mirrors our own relationship with uncertainty, time, and results as coaches. When measures of success are truly co-created, they don’t just guide the session, they deepen the work itself.
This article is part of our ICF-aligned coach training resources for coaches developing professional coaching practice. It explores powerful questions as they relate to coaching presence, relational depth, and the ICF Core Coaching Competencies, particularly for coaches working toward an ICF credential or deepening their coaching skills beyond techniques.
The article is based on episode 21 of our Coaching with Confidence and Care podcast. If you enjoy podcasts and want to hear more professional insights and practical examples, you can listen to the full episode here: