Meeting Clients Where They Are: Coaching Through the Lens of Adult Development

Like cosmos in a meadow, clients grow in different ways and at different stages—all whole, all part of the same field.

Every Co-Active coach is taught the foundational truth: clients are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. Yet in practice, they show up with wildly different levels of self-awareness. Some arrive wanting quick fixes. Others are already wrestling with questions of identity and meaning.

It’s a bit like standing in a field of pink cosmos. Some flowers are still tight buds, others are half-open, and some are fully spread to the sun. All are part of the same meadow, all are whole, all belong. Coaching is much the same: our role is not to rush a bud open, but to meet each client in the stage of meaning-making that is alive for them now.

This is where Robert Kegan’s theory of adult development helps us see the field differently—not as a ladder to climb, but as a landscape of meaning where each client is growing in their own way.

Want to read more?

Subscribe to cindyhosea.com to keep reading this exclusive post.

Subscribe Now