Join Cheryl Close for a free coaching for coaches workshop

 

Coaching Through Emotion:
How to respond when your client cries — while staying firmly in the role of coach.

 

November 17th, 3- 4:30 pm Central

Yikes! My Client is Crying!

What to do when emotion shows up in the coaching conversation

 

You’re in the middle of a coaching session and suddenly your client goes quiet.

Their voice changes. Their eyes fill with tears.

 

And while you’re trying to stay completely present for them, another conversation starts happening quietly inside your own head:

 

Do I say something? Do I give them space? Should I ask a question? Am I supposed to comfort them?

Do I keep coaching? And at what point does this stop being coaching and start becoming something else?

 

For many coaches, this is one of those moments that can knock even a confident coaching conversation slightly off balance.

Not because emotion doesn’t belong in coaching — it absolutely can.

 

But because when a client becomes visibly upset, our very human instinct to comfort, reassure, fix or make things feel better can suddenly collide with our role as a coach.

 

And that is where things can get complicated.

So what do you actually do when your client starts crying?

 

In this practical webinar, we will explore what happens when strong emotion enters the coaching space - and how we can remain grounded, compassionate and fully present without automatically stepping in to rescue, advise, or take responsibility for what our client is experiencing.

 

We’ll look at how to acknowledge emotion without making assumptions about what it means, how to give a client space without abandoning the coaching conversation, and how to recognize when there is still valuable coaching work to be done.

 

We’ll also explore one of the questions coaches often wrestle with:

Where is the line between coaching and therapy — and how do we recognise when we may be approaching it?

 

Because tears do not automatically mean that coaching needs to stop.

 

Sometimes they signal frustration. Sometimes relief.

Sometimes anger, grief, fear, realisation or a breakthrough that the client themselves may only just be beginning to understand.

 

Our job is not to diagnose the emotion.

Our job is to know how to stay with the client while they explore what is happening for them.

 

 

Join Cheryl Close for a live, interactive coaching conversation:

November 17th at 3:00-4:30 pm Central

 

✔︎ What to do in those first few moments when a client becomes emotional

✔︎ How to acknowledge tears without interpreting or labelling them

✔︎ The difference between holding space and trying to make the emotion go away

✔︎ How our own discomfort can influence what we do next

✔︎ Questions that can keep the conversation client-led rather than coach-led

✔︎ How to avoid slipping into fixing, rescuing, reassuring or advising

✔︎ When emotion can deepen the coaching conversation rather than derail it

✔︎ How to recognize when something may sit outside the appropriate scope of coaching

 

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Cheryl Close, M.Ed., MCC, is an International Coaching Federation (ICF) Master Certified Coach with more than eighteen years' experience coaching leaders, professionals, and coaches around the world.

 

For the past eight years, Cheryl has specialized in mentor coaching, supporting more than one hundred coaches as they prepared for their ACC, PCC, and MCC credentials.

 

Before becoming a coach, Cheryl was a classroom teacher and school principal—an experience that continues to shape the way she mentors today.

 

Her approach is practical, encouraging, and deeply developmental. Rather than simply assessing competencies, Cheryl helps coaches understand what excellent coaching sounds like, feels like, and looks like in practice.

 

She teaches on ICF Level 1 and Level 2 coach training programmes and facilitates mentor coaching, performance evaluation preparation, and written exam preparation for coaches working towards their ACC and PCC credentials.

 

Above all, Cheryl creates a learning environment where coaches feel safe to be challenged, supported, and encouraged to grow. Her mentor coaching groups are intentionally small, highly interactive, and always judgement-free—because the best learning happens when coaches feel confident enough to be curious.