"They're so good at what they do, the best way I can support them is to just get out of their way."

Last week I was on a call with a successful business owner who had just spoken these words to me, explaining why she hadn't followed through on coaching her senior leadership team. Despite committing to bi-weekly coaching sessions with each executive, she hadn't held a single one.

Her confession wasn't surprising. I've heard variations of this sentiment countless times from leaders and from parents about their high-achieving children.

It reminds me of a recent conversation with a client about her talented new sales manager. This new team member was brilliant – organized, proactive, and delivering exceptional work just weeks into the role. Yet my client worried that their leader might either neglect coaching her entirely because she was "doing so well" or micromanage her out of insecurity about how to add value.

This pattern shows up everywhere. At work, we focus our coaching energy on struggling team members. At home, we give more attention to the child who's falling behind in school than the one bringing home straight A's. We assume our stars – whether employees or children – are fine on their own.

But what if our assumption is completely wrong? What if our top performers don't need less coaching, but simply a different kind of coaching altogether?

The Quiet Struggle Behind the Spotlight

During the call, I asked my client to do something that shifted her perspective entirely.

"Take out a piece of paper," I said, "and write a letter to yourself from your top-performing executive. In this letter, I want you to capture what you believe they would say they need from you that they cannot provide for themselves."

After she completed the exercise, I asked the question that changed everything: "What's stopping you from giving them that?"

The call went quiet. Her expression shifted from confidence to vulnerability.

"I'm not sure I know how to have those kinds of conversations," she admitted. "It's easier with someone who's struggling – I can identify gaps and provide solutions. But with my stars? I'm afraid I don't have anything to offer them."

And there it was – the truth beneath her "they don't need me" stance. It wasn't that her top performers didn't need coaching; it was that she wasn't confident in her ability to coach at that level. She didn’t know how…yet. 

This revelation appears in family dynamics too. I once worked with a father who spent hours helping his struggling son with homework but barely engaged with his high-achieving daughter beyond congratulating her good grades. When we explored this pattern, he confessed: "With my son, I know what to do. With my daughter, I'm afraid I'll say the wrong thing and either start an argument or somehow mess up her success."

Beneath the Surface of Success

So what do these high performers – the successful sales manager at work or the straight-A student at home – actually need from us?

When I've asked leaders to reflect on this question, their answers have been revealing:

"They need me to help them see their own brilliance when they're doubting themselves."

"They need someone who can help them process setbacks without spiraling into perfectionism."

"They need a sounding board to validate their instincts when facing complex decisions."

"They need permission to take risks without fear of losing my confidence in them."

Notice that none of these are about technical skill development. They're about something far more fundamental: self-trust.

The Garden of Self-Trust

While we can maintain self-trust on our own, the foundation of it is typically built in partnership with others. Think about it – the most confident people you know didn't develop that confidence in isolation. Someone along the way reflected back to them their capabilities, their potential, their worth. Someone helped them see what they couldn't yet see in themselves.

I’ve experienced this countless times throughout my life. Most recently, when I began expanding my coaching practice beyond executives into working with couples and families. I had the technical skills and frameworks, but when sitting with a couple in deep conflict, I found myself constantly second-guessing my interventions. Was I creating more harm than good? Was I missing something crucial?

My mentor didn't teach me new techniques. Instead, during our supervision sessions, she would say things like, "Dave, I've watched you navigate complex dynamics before. What is your body telling you about what's happening in the room?" Or, "Remember when that couple was stuck in blame last month and you helped them shift? What did you sense then that you might be missing now?"

She wasn't building my tactical expertise – she was cultivating my self-trust. Teaching me to believe in my capacity to be present with pain and conflict without needing to fix it immediately. And that kind of coaching was infinitely more valuable than any technical instruction could have been.

When the Stars Begin to Fade

When we avoid coaching our top performers – whether they're team members or children – the consequences unfold quietly at first, then suddenly all at once.

In our professional relationships, star employees who once burned bright begin to dim – becoming disengaged, plateauing in their growth, or leaving for opportunities where they feel truly seen. 

In our families, the high-achieving child who receives attention only through accolades might appear fine on the surface but often wrestles internally with crushing pressure, paralyzing fear of failure, or a sense of self-worth that lives and dies with each performance.

Self-trust isn't something we can fully develop in isolation. It grows in the garden of relationship, nurtured by those who see our potential clearly enough to reflect it back to us when we cannot see it ourselves. While we can certainly maintain and strengthen our self-trust independently, its foundation is typically built in partnership with others who help us recognize and embrace our own wisdom.

The Shadow Behind Our Silence

There's another reason why we avoid coaching our top performers: it forces us to confront our own edges, the boundaries of our comfort and capability.

When someone we lead surpasses our technical abilities, it challenges us to evolve beyond the familiar role of technical expert. Like a basketball coach who once played professionally but now guides athletes more talented than they ever were, we must shift from teaching skills to cultivating mindset, from correcting technique to fostering awareness.

This transition is deeply uncomfortable because it demands our own growth. It asks us to step away from the safety of expertise and into the vulnerability of deeper human connection. It requires us to look inward at what we're avoiding and why.

The brilliance of those around us becomes the mirror in which we see our own limitations most clearly. And herein lies the paradox: the very pain we feel when confronted with a high performer's excellence is precisely the tool we need for our own evolution as leaders and parents. Their excellence becomes our teacher, if only we have the courage to look at what it reveals.

The Question That Changes Everything

For leaders – and parents – struggling with how to support their high performers, I offer this powerful question:

"What do they need from you that they cannot provide for themselves?"

The answer rarely has anything to do with technical skills or subject matter expertise. It's almost always about creating space for reflection, offering perspective, reinforcing judgment, and building that crucial foundation of self-trust.

When we frame coaching this way, it becomes less intimidating. You don't have to be better than your high performers at what they do. You just need to be able to see things they can't see from their vantage point, and to hold space for the kind of reflection that builds lasting self-trust.

Think about your own high performers – at work or at home. Are you engaging with them in a way that builds their self-trust? Or are you keeping your distance because it feels safer?

Remember, they don't need you less. They just need you differently.