What your sponsor actually sees

Almost every coachee spends part of their first session working out how much to say. That is rational. Somebody else is paying, that somebody usually signs off their promotion, and nobody has explained in plain language what gets reported.

So here is the plain language.

What the sponsor receives

• Attendance. Whether sessions are happening. Sponsors are entitled to know they are buying something that exists.
• Progress against the Working Contract. The two or three shifts agreed at the start, and a judgement about movement on each.
• Themes at the mid-point and the close. What has been worked on, what stakeholders now notice, what remains open.

What the sponsor does not receive

• What you said. In any session. In any form.
• Stakeholder interview material attributed to anyone. The Read is themed and de-identified before it reaches you, and only themes reach the sponsor.
• Your psychometric results. Those belong to you. If you choose to share them, that is your decision and we will not be in the room for it.
• Anything about whether you are considering leaving. This one matters. Leaders test that question in coaching precisely because it is the only place they safely can.

The exceptions, stated honestly

There are two, and they are the same two every credible coach works to. The first is a risk of serious harm to you or another person. The second is legal compulsion — a court order or a regulatory obligation. Neither has arisen in fourteen years of this practice, and if either did you would hear it from your coach before anyone else heard it from us.

Note what is not on that list. A sponsor being frustrated is not an exception. A sponsor being senior is not an exception. A sponsor threatening not to renew is very much not an exception, and a coaching practice that would bend there has already told you what it is.

Why we say this in front of everybody

The three-way contracting session exists so that this boundary is stated once, out loud, with the sponsor in the room, and never has to be negotiated in the awkward middle of month four. It takes about six minutes of a forty-five minute conversation.

Sponsors who understand coaching are visibly relieved. Sponsors who wanted a reporting line find out immediately, which is better for everyone. In fourteen years we have declined three engagements at that point. Each time the organisation came back later for something honest.

If a coach cannot tell you exactly what leaves the room before you have paid them anything, you have learned something useful about the coach.

One thing coachees consistently get wrong

People assume the confidentiality boundary protects them from their sponsor. Mostly it protects the work. A leader who is managing their disclosure is not coaching; they are presenting. The behaviour that needs to move is, almost by definition, the behaviour they would rather not describe.

Which is why we would rather spend six minutes at the start than lose four months to a leader being careful.