The leader I coach told me right away that they were not feeling well. I offered to reschedule. They said no. They wanted to stay.

I have thought about that moment all day. A leader running on empty chose to spend the morning with their coach. That told me what our time together means to them, and it told me what my job was that day. It was not to deliver an agenda. It was to follow their lead.

I am not this leader’s supervisor, and I am not directive with them. I value what they think. They lead, and we create together. By the end of that session we had built something neither of us walked in with: a leadership time tracker, made with AI, that shows them and their co-leader where their minutes actually go. And I walked out more renewed than I have felt in a long time.

The pivot: “when you have to stop”

The leader and their co-leader wanted to spend more of the day on instruction, and they wanted to know where their time was really going. What was on the table was paper. Printed calendars. Notes in the margins. A plan to jot times in a notebook and enter them at the end of the day.

I was listening closely, not only to the plan but to what sat underneath it. Then the leader told me that one of the things that gets them is “when you have to stop and do something.” They would rather keep a pen in hand and jot “10 o’clock this, 10:30 this,” and keep moving.

I could have heard that as a habit to fix: block out the time, be consistent, build the routine. Instead I heard it as information about what they needed. “I feel you,” I said, “because you’re in it.” A leader is in it all day. A tool that asks them to stop will fail, not because they lack commitment, but because the tool does not fit the work. So I asked rather than prescribed. Did they want help thinking through a simpler way? They did.

That sentence became our design requirement. Whatever we built had to take less effort than stopping.

From their words to a tool

Right there at the table, I recorded a voice message to my AI assistant and carried that requirement straight into it. The first answer was the safe default, so I asked it what I would ask any thought partner: is this your best work? The second answer was a tracker that lives on the leader’s phone home screen like an app, with a large tile for each priority and a single tap to add minutes.

Their sentence kept steering. When the tool suggested a spreadsheet, we said no. When we asked for something two leaders could use on the move, it added a timer you can start walking into a classroom and stop walking out. When it added a view so I could see the leader’s minutes, I asked it to take that out. Their data is theirs. They share what they choose.

People miss this about AI. The AI did not do this. We built this. It is only as good as the thinking you bring, and the leader’s thinking was the best input in the room.

They named it. I asked.

The leader pulled out sticky notes and wrote down everything they spend time on, and we sorted them together. My role was to ask, not to suggest. Do you find that takes your time daily? Should this be for you only, or for your co-leader too?

We had a category called reactive student issues. I noticed that not all of their time with students was a disruption, and I asked: should it be called reactive? If not, what should it be called? The leader drew the line themselves. Reactive is when something happens and you have to respond in the moment. Responsive is intentional, like lunch with a student or building a relationship with a teacher. That became two categories, and it is exactly the kind of insight that only comes from the leader.

By the end, the tracker held instruction, planning, operations, leadership development, reactive and responsive time, parent and community engagement, and one more category the leader added on their own: self-care.

Built for their renewal

The purpose was never compliance. The leader believed that seeing how they and their co-leader spend their days would help them protect what matters most, and help them be renewed every day. So the tracker ends each day with one question: how renewed do you feel leaving today? The answer is a tap from drained to renewed, with room for one line about what gave energy or what took it.

This leader arrived that morning not feeling well. They left with a tool built around their own renewal, designed in their own words.

Why I left renewed too

I am excited to share this experience because it renewed me as a coach. It reminded me of my purpose, and of the joy I get from watching leaders direct themselves into theirs.

I firmly believe that people know what they need. Coaches are not the players, and we should not be the sole drivers of the relationship. Our job is to support people in realizing their greatest potential. And I do not believe you can do that if you do not believe in them and help them believe in themselves.

None of what happened that morning was an accident. The International Coaching Federation defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” Its core competencies ask coaches to listen to what a client “is and is not saying” and to evoke insight through “powerful questioning” rather than answers. The Co-Active model starts from the belief that people are “naturally creative, resourceful, and whole.” Listening, asking instead of telling, staying in the moment, and protecting the leader’s ownership were choices I made on purpose.

That is why I believe leaders need a coach in the true sense of the word, the way ICF defines it. Not a supervisor with a checklist. Not someone who simply did the job well once. Leaders thrive when they are supported by trained professionals who partner with them and trust them to lead.

So here is my question for you. When was the last time someone asked you what you need, and then let you lead the answer?

Sources

• International Coaching Federation. “What Is Coaching?” coachingfederation.org/about
• International Coaching Federation. “ICF Core Competencies.” coachingfederation.org
• Kimsey-House, H., Kimsey-House, K., Sandahl, P., and Whitworth, L. Co-Active Coaching (4th ed.). Nicholas Brealey, 2018.