Part 1 of 5 in a series on Coaching Through Uncertainty and Emotional Strain
About this series
This five-part series on Coaching Through Uncertainty and Emotional Strain explores how coaches working across a range of settings and sectors can support clients when life feels unstable, emotionally demanding or uncertain. It offers practical, psychologically informed ways to create safety, work with what is present, support steadiness, and help people reconnect with agency before moving into action.
When the World Feels Uncertain, Coaching Needs to Slow Down
We are coaching in a time when many people are carrying more than is immediately visible.
Clients may arrive in coaching wanting to talk about work, confidence, leadership, health, relationships, career direction or behaviour change. Yet sitting behind those topics may be a wider atmosphere of uncertainty: financial pressure, workplace ambiguity, caring responsibilities, health concerns, global conflict, climate anxiety, political instability, technological disruption, or simply the sense that life is harder to predict than it once felt.
Whatever the setting, uncertainty is increasingly part of the emotional weather of the coaching conversation.
The World Economic Forum has described a global landscape shaped by geopolitical, environmental, societal, economic and technological pressures, with risks including conflict, extreme weather, polarisation, technological disruption, inequality and misinformation (World Economic Forum, 2026). At a more personal level, the Mental Health Foundation has highlighted the effect of the cost-of-living crisis on mental health, including the anxiety created by financial strain (Mental Health Foundation, n.d.).
These wider pressures matter because clients do not leave them outside the coaching room. They bring them into the conversation through their bodies, emotions, attention, relationships and sense of agency.
A client may say:
- “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
- “I’m holding too much.”
- “I can’t think clearly.”
- “I know I need to do something, but I don’t know where to start.”
- “I don’t feel like myself.”
These statements are more than passing comments. They may be signals that the client is experiencing uncertainty, emotional strain or a reduced sense of inner stability. The coach’s task is to hear not only the words, but the state behind the words.
This is where coaching may need to slow down.
Many coaching models quite rightly help people move from where they are now to where they want to be. They support insight, options, motivation, commitment and action. These are valuable parts of coaching. But when a client is emotionally overloaded, too much movement towards action too quickly can feel like pressure. The person may not yet have enough steadiness to think clearly, choose wisely or act confidently.
In these moments, the coach’s first contribution may be to help the client stabilise.
That does not mean becoming a therapist, rescuing the client, or abandoning the coaching role. It means bringing a psychologically informed quality of attention to the work. It means noticing when a client needs safety, containment, validation, perspective and small steps before they are ready for larger commitments.
A useful guiding question for the coach is: “What does this person need now – stability, agency or structure?”
Sometimes the answer is structure. The client may need to sort through options, prioritise, plan and act.
Sometimes the answer is agency. The client may need to reconnect with choice, values, influence and possibility.
But sometimes, especially at the beginning, the answer is stability. The client may need to feel heard, grounded and less alone with what they are carrying.
This is where the coach’s emotional awareness becomes essential. When a client arrives distressed, stuck, ashamed, confused or overwhelmed, the coach may feel their own urge to help quickly. We may want to reassure, advise, solve, reframe or move the conversation towards action because discomfort is difficult to sit with. Yet coaching through uncertainty asks something more subtle of us.
It asks us to:
- stay present
- listen deeply
- trust that slowing down can be a purposeful intervention
A coach working well in uncertainty creates a space where the client does not need to perform clarity before they have found it. The client does not need to be positive before they are ready. They do not need to have the answer before they have had the chance to tell the truth about where they are.
This is why psychological safety is so important. Edmondson (2018) describes psychological safety as a condition in which people feel able to speak openly, learn and take interpersonal risks. In coaching, this means creating a space where the client can say what is really happening without needing to minimise, justify or hide their distress.
The coach can support this through simple but powerful moves:
- “You don’t have to have this worked out yet.”
- “We can start exactly where you are.”
- “There is no pressure to turn this into an action plan too quickly.”
- “Let’s take a moment to understand what feels most present.”
These are not soft alternatives to coaching. They are skilled coaching interventions. They help create the conditions in which thinking can widen, agency can return and action can become more meaningful.
When the world feels uncertain, coaching does not need to become hesitant. It needs to become more attuned. More spacious. More emotionally intelligent. More able to meet the person as they are, while still holding confidence in who they may become.
In times of instability, one of the most powerful things a coach can offer is steadiness.
References
Edmondson, A. C. (2018). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. Wiley.
Mental Health Foundation. (n.d.). The cost-of-living crisis is affecting us all and our mental health.
World Economic Forum. (2026). The Global Risks Report 2026.
