Why the Coaching Industry is Failing Women
In the past years, I’ve coached many high-functioning women — senior leaders, business owners, mothers, women in long-term relationships — and the same pattern repeats itself: Coaching is failing them. Not because coaches have bad intentions. But because most coaching models were built on assumptions that simply don’t match women’s lived experience or nervous systems.
Most coaching still follows a predictable structure:
- set the goal
- identify the gap
- challenge limiting beliefs
- take action
- stay accountable
For a lot of people, that’s fine and creates great results. But for women who have spent decades carrying the emotional load of relationships, households, and workplaces — this approach doesn’t just fall short. It often deepens the very patterns they are trying to break.
Let me show you what I mean.
Women aren’t just “Stuck.” They’re Over-Functioning everywhere.
Most of the women I work with haven’t learned to prioritize internal authority or their own needs. Quite the opposite, in fact. Women are the care-taker of society and families and are conditioned to be that for everyone around them - family members, friends, colleagues.
Women are raised to be:
accommodating
emotionally available
intuitive to others’ moods
responsible for harmony
the one who notices and fixes tension
the one who absorbs discomfort
the one who adjusts first
Over years and decades, this creates a very specific survival strategy: “I maintain connection by doing the relational work.” And here’s the problem: Coaching, as it’s traditionally taught, often gives them more relational work to do.
A Real Example (One I see all the time)
A woman shared this with me recently: She and her partner were having a light, casual conversation about where they might want to live in the future — something that, for most couples, would be an enjoyable, even exciting topic.
She initiated the conversation (as she usually does). He responded passively at first, then became defensive. The whole mood shifted. She felt the familiar pressure in her body:
“I need to repair this.”
“I must have said something wrong.”
“I shouldn’t have brought this up.”
“Now I have to fix the tension.”
She did not express anger. She did not escalate. She asked questions, shared her opinion. She simply had a wish to explore and a had a need to create check-in on the future and voiced it — and immediately felt responsible for the disconnect. This is extremely common. Now here’s the key part: She brought this situation to her coach, explaining that her frustration that an exiting topic such as this had become such a nightmare. The coach responded after having heard the whole story: “So… how could you bring more ease and lightness into that conversation next time?”. - On the surface, that sounds supportive. But if you’ve ever lived this dynamic, you know exactly how it lands:
“Make it better.”
“Be easier.”
“Don’t bring tension.”
“Regulate both of you.”
“Carry it again.”
The coach unintentionally placed the entire emotional responsibility — again — on the woman who was already carrying it. And she left the session believing:
“I need to try harder. I’m the one who has to adjust. I caused the problem.” This is the moment where traditional coaching completely loses women.
The Missing Ingredient: The Nervous System
Women who grew up learning to maintain connection by managing tension do not need: another strategy, another mindset shift, another communication tool, another “bring ease” suggestion What they need first is the one thing most coaching models don’t address: Nervous system safety.
Because when a woman learned early on that relational disconnect equals danger — her body reacts before her mind even forms a thought. And when a coach asks her to “bring more lightness,” that request interacts directly with her deepest conditioning:
Don’t be difficult.
Don’t be too much.
Try harder
Make it smooth.
Carry the emotional responsibility.
This is not empowerment at all. It’s repetition of a learned, unhelpful pattern, that created the problem to begin with.
Why This Matters Now
We’re living in a moment where women are deeply questioning: how they want to live, what kind of partnership they want, how much responsibility they want to carry, what they are no longer willing to absorb, how they want to work, who they are when they’re not performing. Identity is shifting for many women — not in a dramatic way, but slowly, consistently, sometimes uncomfortably. And when women enter coaching during this phase, they often hear:
Take action.
Try a new approach.
Make it lighter.
Communicate differently.
So they do. And they still feel the same. Not because they’re resisting the work (quite the opposite)— but because they’re being asked to operate against their own physiology and history. Women don’t need more resilience. They don’t need more emotional labor. They need support that understands the weight they’ve been carrying, and why their system reacts the way it does.
Why I’m Writing This 4-Part Series
I want to make the invisible visible. Because once women understand what’s actually happening in their bodies, their relationships, and their conditioning, they stop blaming themselves for dynamics that were never theirs alone. Here’s what the next posts will cover:
Post 1 — Why the coaching industry is failing women
Post 2 — The survival strategies women get praised for (and why they keep women stuck)
Post 3 — Why safety has to come before strategy if you want real change
Post 4 — What a new model of coaching looks like, based on regulation, clarity, and self-trust
This isn’t about criticising any approaches out there. It is is about recognising and understanding the reality of women’s emotional load — and offering a model of support that fits. This topic is very close to my heart. Every single woman I worked with over the past 3 years struggled with the same pattern of carrying it all.
If you know a woman who needs to hear this: please forward this blog post
If you want to find out how I work with women to break the over-functioning pattern: get in touch.
