How do I know I am still adding value?

A supervision reflection on benefit, boundaries, and the quiet pull of success

Adding Value

A question raised recently in supervision has stayed with me: “How do I know that I am still adding value for my coachee?”

It is a deceptively simple question, and one that many experienced coaches will recognise.

In this case, the coach was working with a coachee under an open-ended contract. There was no agreed endpoint and no defined review points. The coachee brought a range of issues to the work, not necessarily connected, and each was being addressed in turn.

By most conventional measures, the coaching appeared to be working: The coachee gave positive feedback; They reported progress; They implemented strategies discussed in sessions.

And yet, the coach felt uneasy.

Alongside the satisfaction of seeing change, the coach noticed something else, the sense of excitement, a buzz, when the coachee reported success. A quieter question followed.

Am I serving the client, or am I also serving my own need to feel effective?

This was not framed as wrongdoing or failure. Rather, it was an honest recognition of the complex emotional economy that can develop in sustained coaching relationships.

When value becomes hard to see clearly

One of the risks in open-ended coaching relationships is that momentum can replace intention. Sessions continue because they have always continued. Progress is noted issue by issue, but the overall purpose of the work is no longer actively examined.

In supervision, the coach began to explore a subtle concern. Could the relationship be drifting towards a form of co-dependency, not because the coachee was stuck, but because the coach was rewarded by the coachee’s progress?

This is not uncommon. Coaches are human. We care. We are affected by success. And when feedback is positive, it can become harder to ask the more uncomfortable questions about endings, autonomy, and sufficiency.

A Blue Peter Totaliser

During supervision, the coach introduced a striking metaphor. They imagined two Blue Peter–style totalisers (a visual record of fundraising progress used by UK children’s TV programme Blue Peter), each being filled with bottle tops as the coaching progressed. One totaliser represented benefit to the coachee. The other represented benefit to the coach.

The question became, whose totaliser is filling faster?

The metaphor was powerful because it offered something the coach was missing, a way of seeing relative benefit, not just absolute progress. It created space to notice when the coach might be gaining as much, or more, from the work than the coachee. It also highlights when the coaching is coming to completion.

Crucially, this was not about eliminating benefit to the coach. Coaching is meaningful work, and it is legitimate for coaches to find it rewarding. The ethical edge lies in noticing when that reward begins to influence decisions about continuation, structure, or challenge.

The missing pauses in the contract

A second insight emerged just as clearly.

Because the contract was open-ended, there were no built-in moments to stop and ask:

·       Is this still the best use of the coachee’s time and money?

·       What has shifted since we began?

·       What would completion, or a pause, look like now?

·       Should we re-contract, or is it time to end?

Without those pauses, the coaching relationship had no natural points for evaluation. Supervision revealed that the question “Am I still adding value?” was not only a personal or ethical concern, but also a contracting issue.

The response was not abrupt termination, but more intentional structure, agreed review points after every 6 sessions, explicit evaluation conversations, and permission for either party to name when the work might be complete for now.

What supervision made possible

What stands out in this reflection is not the problem itself, but what supervision enabled.

Supervision creates a space where coaches can notice their own emotional responses without judgement, examine benefit and motivation honestly, surface ethical questions early rather than retrospectively, and identify practical changes to contracting and practice. Which is what happened for this coach.

Nothing was wrong with the coaching. But something important was unexamined, and supervision brought it into view. Questions like “How do I know I am still adding value?” rarely announce themselves loudly. They tend to arrive as unease, restlessness, or self-doubt, particularly for conscientious coaches who care deeply about their work.

Supervision offers a place to stay with those questions long enough to learn from them.

If you are working with clients over extended periods, holding open-ended contracts, or noticing that success itself has become complicated, supervision may not give you answers, but it can offer clarity.

And often, that is what both coach and client most need.

Photograph: BBC. Source: The Guardian