Coaching with courage and vulnerability can not only lead to client change, it can boost coaches’ learning too, says Janet Laffin, senior lecturer, Sheffield Hallam University. There has been renewed interest in the relational qualities sponsors look for in a coach, following the publication of the 2013 Ridler Report1, which highlighted qualities, including personal chemistry and the ability to work with clients’ ingrained psychological patterns of behaviour. John Blakey, joint author of Challenging Coaching, says that trust, vulnerability and courage are essential coach qualities that...