Coaching | Intrinsic Wayfinding: Notes From My Journey
As I’ve joined SGNL, shared my new adventure with Jen, and begun my year-long executive coaching certification at the University of Texas, some of the questions I’m getting the most sound like this … Are you doing coaching? Why aren’t you doing coaching? What is Intrinsic Wayfinding? How’s it different from coaching?
Several weeks in, I want to share what I’ve learned so far and my notes from my journey.
I believe it’s necessary to start with a history of coaching and how it’s changed over time.
Coaching: Its history from Power-Over to Power-With
For most of its history, coaching implied a power dynamic.
In sports and military contexts, the coach was the authority: the one who knew, directed, disciplined, and corrected. To be coached was to be told what to do — often in a style that demanded obedience.
The word's academic roots — in the 16th century, a “coach” carried students through exams — implied dependency. Success depended on someone else’s expertise.
That framing carried into the early days of executive coaching in the 1970s and 1980s. Coaching at this time in organizations was often remedial. If you were “sent to a coach,” you weren’t meeting expectations. The process was about fixing deficits more than unlocking potential. The power still sat firmly with the organization or the expert, not with the person being coached.
The breakthrough came in 1974 with Timothy Gallwey’s The Inner Game of Tennis. Gallwey reframed coaching as less about giving instruction and more about helping people overcome internal obstacles that blocked their natural abilities. His insight was radical for its time: the client already holds the capacity; the coach’s role is to unlock it. For the first time, coaching shifted from control to curiosity.
The 1990s marked another turning point. Thomas Leonard, often called the father of modern coaching, founded Coach U in 1992 and then the International Coach Federation (ICF) in 1995. He and others began codifying coaching as a profession — distinct from therapy, consulting, or mentoring. The ICF Competencies and Code of Ethics established coaching as a client-centered partnership, rooted in trust, listening, and empowerment.
By the 2000s, coaching was no longer a tool for underperformers but a resource for high-potential leaders. It became part of how organizations invested in their best people. And in the last two decades, it has expanded even further — into leadership, teams, health, and life — always holding to the principle that coaching is about drawing out, not putting in.
Today, coaching is defined not by authority but by partnership. It is a thought-provoking, creative process that helps people maximize their potential. The power dynamic has flipped: it’s no longer “power-over” but “power-with.”
And that shift matters because the future of leadership depends on it.
I’m enrolled in the University of Texas Executive Coaching Program, and at the end of the program, I will have a Level 2 ICF coaching certification. On this journey, I’m learning so many valuable things, and I’m also having some time to think about the question: if this is coaching, then what is Intrinsic Wayfinding?
I would answer that question this way:
Intrinsic wayfinding builds on the best of modern coaching — and then asks something more.
Coaching creates a powerful partnership in which people surface their desired outcomes and insights, clarify what matters, and take intentional action.
Intrinsic Wayfinding takes this further by anchoring the journey not just in goals or performance, but in our own internal, deeper signals of identity, values, and purpose. It’s less about “what do you want to achieve?” and more about “who are you becoming, and how do you navigate towards what you are hoping for?”
Where coaching helps people move from point A to point B with clarity and momentum, intrinsic wayfinding adds an internal compass. It invites leaders to tune into their own inner guidance system — the quiet wisdom beneath the noise of external expectations — and let that shape the path forward. In this way, intrinsic wayfinding doesn’t replace coaching; it expands it. It keeps the tools of awareness, listening, and growth, and situates them inside a broader process of alignment and authentic leadership.
How Intrinsic Wayfinding Extends Coaching
From performance → To purpose
Coaching often orients clients around goals and outcomes. Intrinsic wayfinding asks leaders to ground those goals in who they are and what they stand for.
From external measures → To internal compass
Coaching builds clarity and action plans. Intrinsic wayfinding helps leaders trust the deeper signals — values, intuition, identity — that guide sustainable choices.
From problem-solving → To meaning-making
Coaching helps remove barriers and unlock options. Intrinsic wayfinding invites leaders to interpret and align their experience with a larger sense of direction.
From action plans → To authentic alignment
Coaching moves people forward. Intrinsic wayfinding ensures the steps taken are true to the leader’s core self, not just what the system and recognized constructs have rewarded.
From skill-building → To self-return
Coaching sharpens capabilities and is often focused on leaders and those with traditional corporate jobs. Intrinsic wayfinding brings anyone (leaders, artists, teachers, humans) back to their whole, integrated selves — so decisions and impact flow from integrity and internal alignment.
Intrinsic Wayfinding
Trust doesn’t just live in systems—it lives in people.
Many of the leaders I have worked with in my career are at personal inflection points: taking on bigger roles, navigating crises, or wondering if they can keep leading in a way that feels true. That’s where Intrinsic Wayfinding comes in. It’s not coaching in the traditional sense. It’s a return to your own compass, so your decisions and actions align with what you know is right—for you, your team, and the business, for life. Humans who move from that place inspire loyalty, build highly engaged, talented teams and community, make faster calls, and drive better results.
There you go, notes from the journey, thus far. More to come in the months ahead.
