Coaches are human beings too! 🙂

…And we ALL get triggered by our clients sometimes! Coaches are not immune from emotional vulnerability.

The challenge is… are we aware of it when it’s happening in the present moment?

Coaching is a huge undertaking…

As a coach, you have an intimate opportunity to be with someone on a journey of their inner and outer worlds, as they commit and engage in life-changing work to realize their goals and dreams for a more fulfilling life.

What qualifies us to be on this journey with them?

There are many things…

Our innate passion for helping people, our life experiences, the development of our coaching skills, our passion for learning, and our ability to be guided by our intuition, are some of them.

For anyone who is in the field of helping others, ONE IMPORTANT element qualifying us, that many coaches are missing, is a deep understanding of themselves:

You only understand your clients from the level that you understand yourself. The more we are aware of our own true nature – the deeper we can guide and support others. You have to know yourself well first…

This is the difference between an average coach and a truly brilliant one.

Our own personality patterns can unconsciously undermine or create bias in our coaching work. We get triggered or become reactive in the moment.

The good news…

Deeply knowing your own personality type, becoming aware of, and attuned to your predictable patterns, will help you to stay present and effective in the moment.

As a seasoned coach, I’ve observed and experienced many of these predictable patterns and seen how coaches get in their own way when coaching (including my own!).

In this post, I’m going to share some examples of the predictable patterns I teach in my professional coaching certification program.

See if you can recognize yourself in any of these patterns…

The Perfectionist
(Enneatype 1)

  • Giving advice because you have an opinion and know the right way to do things.
  • Becoming irritated if they don’t follow your advice.
  • Your strong need to ‘get coaching right’ because of your drive for personal responsibility and perfectionism.
  • Always wanting to ‘fix’ things for your client.
  • Ignoring or dismissing any emotional aspects of your client’s situation by sticking to an objective and rational approach.
  • Coming over as judgmental when you are just trying to help.

The Helper/Giver
(Enneatype 2)

  • Not being direct with your feedback to your clients, therefore distorting the reality of a situation.
  • Smothering your client with your time and resources, then feeling resentful when they fail to do the work or don’t use what you’ve given them.
  • Not setting boundaries with your client relationships – coaching them all hours!
  • Using flattery to compliment your client in order to be liked.
  • Being overly possessive of your client, when other people try to give them advice.

The Achiever
(Enneatype 3)

  • Moving the conversations along too quickly, because of your natural fast-paced no nonsense approach to getting results.
  • Only being focused on the achievement of their goals and not allowing them space to process any associated feelings and emotions.
  • Giving them advice and the most direct path to achievement, rather than coaching the client to create their own path to success.
  • Competing with your client – talking about your own achievements and making your client feel like they don’t measure up or are incompetent.

The Individualist
(Ennatype 4)

  • Self-referencing by making things about you and overly sharing your own experiences with your client.
  • Getting overly involved in the feelings and emotions of your client’s issue.
  • Comparing yourself with your client especially if you perceive them to be more successful than you, undermining your own competence.
  • Getting lost in idealization and fantasy rather than grounding your client in the reality of their situation and helping them to take action.
  • Perceiving that you’re not being listened to during the session.

The Investigator
(Enneatype 5)

  • Keeping your thoughts and feelings to yourself and sharing anything in the coaching relationship.
  • Staying away from feelings and emotions and focusing only on acquiring competency and knowledge.
  • Not allowing time for implementation and action because you’re more comfortable spending time on planning, researching, and analyzing.
  • Looking for an opportunity to demonstrate how smart you are and making your client feel inferior.
  • Not adapting to the pace your client needs and getting lost in the analysis.

The Loyal Guardian
(Enneatype 6)

  • Not trusting your own inner authority as a coach. Oscillating between options and causing indecisiveness.
  • Hesitating to ask any questions when the answers are unknown.
  • Not helping your clients to stretch and take risks or set goals that are stretching.
  • Projecting what you think clients might be thinking or feeling, not based on any evidence or conversation.
  • Feeling overly responsible for your client’s success. Taking this on and feeling anxiety and worry about their outcomes.
  • Doubting your ability as a coach.

The Enthusiast
(Enneatype 7)

  • Focus too much on the positive side of things and trying to keep your client happy and positive.
  • Multitasking while coaching and easily getting distracted.
  • Moving too fast for the client that they can’t keep up with your fast thinking.
  • Forgetting to follow through on your promises after a session.
  • Avoiding spending enough time on negative emotions such as sadness and fear, and not allowing time for your client to process them fully.

The Challenger
(Enneatype 8)

  • Being too direct and telling your client what to do all the time.
  • Not being open to exploring other ways of doing things other than what you prescribe.
  • Staying away from any emotional vulnerability that shows up for your client.
  • Getting your client to jump in and take action without allowing time for them to create a process. Your focus is on the bottom line rather than the detail.
  • Overly challenging your client or pushing them to challenge things too much in their own situations.
  • Talking too much and making your client feel they are not being listened to.

The Peacemaker
(Enneatype 9)

  • Avoiding the difficult conversations that need to be explored.
  • Being too easygoing with goals and your client’s progress towards them.
  • Not challenging your clients and holding up the mirror when they need it.
  • Avoiding any conflict with your client causing any conflict to escalate and feel awkward.
  • Not speaking up and sharing what’s on your mind, when this might be helpful to a client.
  • Says yes to doing something for a client, when you mean no, then not following through on it.

When I teach these in my Enneagram and the Coach program, I ask my students to:

  1. Take a moment to think about how you show up and highlight the ones that know are true for you.

    (If you don’t know, then start to notice when you are getting triggered and make a note of it after your coaching session).
  2. How you can create a conscious pattern interrupt when you notice this happening with a client? Use this prompt:

    “When I notice this pattern in myself I will…”
  1. Here are some extra ways to avoid getting triggered!

Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments with me – I’d love to read them.

Contact me if you need any help with your triggers or biases – Happy to help!

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3 Comments

  1. Joan Gilbert November 5, 2025 at 5:21 pm - Reply

    I read through all of these because I’m fascinated with Enneagram, and love what it teaches me. As a nine, I notice I have a tendancy to be too easygoing with goals and my clients progress towards them. Thanks for that !!!
    Here’s a question – What did you mean by the following in describing Enneatype 5 – seems like something’s missing –
    “Keeping your thoughts and feelings to yourself and sharing anything in the coaching relationship.”

    Thank you, Joan

    • Elaine Bailey November 11, 2025 at 4:42 pm - Reply

      Hi Joan — thank you so much for reading and for taking the time to comment! I love that you’re diving into the Enneagram and noticing those subtle Type 9 patterns — that gentle “going along” energy can be such a gift in coaching, and it’s wonderful that you’re aware of how it can also soften goal-setting or accountability. Beautiful insight.

      And thank you for catching that missing word in the Type 5 description, you’re absolutely right, it should have read “keeping your thoughts and feelings to yourself and not sharing them in the coaching relationship.”

      What I meant is that Type 5 coaches often stay in their heads; they process quietly, observe deeply, and sometimes hold back from sharing their inner reactions or intuitions in the moment. The growth edge is learning to bring more of that inner world into the conversation: sharing what they’re noticing or feeling (with good boundaries, of course) to create more connection and aliveness in the coaching relationship.

      I really appreciate your thoughtful question and your curiosity — it’s what makes these kinds of conversations so rich. 💛

  2. Elaine Bailey November 11, 2025 at 4:44 pm - Reply

    Oops… Type 5 should read:
    “Keeping your thoughts and feelings to yourself and not sharing them in the coaching relationship.”

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