When I’m coaching leaders, one of the first things we talk about is my perspective on giving advice, which is pretty simple: I don’t. Here’s why.

Here’s a little secret: Every leader you know, including you, has a birthday. (Today is mine.) Some of us, maybe many of us, find it difficult to celebrate making it around the sun again.

The leaders I coach all have a face they want to show to the world. But we also have a face that usually stays hidden. That’s our leadership shadow. Leading well means making it your friend.

Most of the leaders I coach have taken any number of personality inventories to help them understand themselves better. To use these tests well, though, we need to know what, exactly, they are trying to measure.

Often, the leaders I coach have a pretty clear idea of what they want to do. But what’s more important to me is why they want what they want. Because that's what sets the stage for real growth.

One of a leader’s most important jobs is interpreting what’s going on for those around them. Communication scholar Gail Fairhurst describes this role as “framing,” and it’s something my coaching clients need to do.

Why might you need a coach like me? As a colleague in advertising told potential clients: “It’s simple. You’re good at what you do. But no matter how good you are, you can’t see yourself.”

When I’m working with leaders (and myself) as they struggle through painful transitions, they sometimes wonder why they can’t get over what they’ve lost years, even decades later. I remind them there’s no timetable on grief.

Every coach is unique, but there are three coaching models: normative coaching, breakthrough coaching, and process coaching. All can be helpful, but I’m a process-oriented coach. Here’s why.

One of the goals of my coaching is helping leaders develop more flexible ways of solving problems. Flexibility, the psychologist Alfred Adler wrote, is absolutely key if we’re going to flourish.

In the 1980s, sociologist Ulrich Beck’s “Risk Society” provided a blueprint of the world that's burning my coaching clients out. His book is still relevant for leaders today.

Each of my coaching engagements begins with what I (and most other coaches) call a Discovery Session. Because every coach handles these sessions a little differently, I’d like to share with you how I do mine.

Carl Jung said the bigger a problem is, the less likely we’ll be able to solve it. Our greatest problems, he believed, can only be outgrown. That insight defines how I coach leaders.

Jung’s observation goes against the grain of contemporary Western humanity. Psychotherapist and grief counselor Alan Wolfelt says we’ve bought into what he calls the medical model of dealing with human problems.

Christina Maslach’s “Burnout: The Cost of Caring” was one of the first books I read on burnout in social sector leadership. Her framework is helpful for coaching leaders because it emphasizes that burnout is as systemic as it is individual.

We all have multiple "selves" that emerge in response to what’s going on around us. As a coach, I help clients notice these parts as they appear—especially when they’re getting in the way.

I’m an accredited body-oriented coach. That means my coaching focuses not only on what you’re thinking and feeling but also on what your body might be telling you. Because your body has its own story to tell.

As a leadership coach, grief and loss are everywhere I look. Sometimes, these losses are abundantly clear, like the death of a loved one. But other, silent losses can show up in how we relate to others and our work.

As a coach who works with social sector leaders experiencing burnout, listening is a big part of what I do. It’s also one of the most challenging things I do. We underestimate how hard listening—truly listening—is.

When people come to coaching to boost their “executive presence,” they often really want help with low self-confidence. For them, it's a character flaw. But it isn’t. And realizing low confidence isn’t our fault opens up new ways to grow.

Psychologist Chris Argyris argued that feeling successful was central to a meaningful life. And that if we’re going to succeed, we need to be reasonably confident our efforts will be successful.

In other words, if I’m going to put in the effort to speak up in a meeting, take on a new project or promotion, ask someone out on a date, or move to a new city, I have to be reasonably confident things are going to work out.

This week, articles in the New York Times and The Atlantic pointed to the extraordinary toxicity of Ivy league institutions, namely Yale. These stories illustrate a culture poisoning us all.