In this episode of The Coaching Method, Olga Kuvshinova Shahzeidi speaks with Katherine Lord, Master of Social Work and the Community and Partner Engagement Leader at the International Coaching Federation, about why coaching skills matter far beyond the coaching profession.

Katherine shares how her career led her to ICF. Today, she supports organizations developing internal coaching programs while pursuing her own ACC credential.

She explains why coaching is not only a profession, but also a leadership skill, an empathy skill, and a powerful way of relating to clients, colleagues, family members, and children.

You’ll discover:

• Why coaching skills are valuable in social work, leadership, parenting, and everyday conversations
• How “thought partnership” creates more possibility than a problem-solving mindset
• How Katherine used a 20-minute walk with her four-year-old to practice asking questions instead of immediately giving answers
• Why it is important to distinguish between “coach mode” and “wife mode”
• How identifying core values can bring clarity to difficult personal and professional decisions
• Why women balancing career, motherhood, and family responsibilities can benefit from thinking backward from the future
• Why organizations may need to look beyond traditional ROI when evaluating the value of coaching

Katherine also discusses her own core values - leadership, integrity, and joy - and how they guide her choices, relationships, and responses to challenging situations.

But this conversation explores motherhood, career transitions, workplace culture, self-discovery, values alignment, professional identity, and the pressure to make the “right” choices in a busy season of life.

For coaches in training, working parents, women navigating career change, leaders, and anyone interested in more meaningful conversations, this episode offers a simple but powerful reminder: questions lead to connection, simplicity can reveal truth, and one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves is:

What do you want?

If you have ever wondered what professional, ICF-accredited coaching actually looks like - or why some coaching feels transformative while other coaching feels vague - this conversation offers a clear and practical perspective.

Host Olga Kuvshinova Shahzeidi sits down with Lena, an ICF-accredited coach with more than 24 years of experience, to explore what coaching looks like when it is grounded in standards, boundaries, and curiosity.

Lena explains why coaching is a distinct method rather than a catch-all term, and why credibility and professional standards matter in an industry where anyone can call themselves a coach.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• why Lena believes coaching needs clearer standards, regulation, and credentialing
• how coaching differs from advice, mentoring, training, and consulting
• what ACC, PCC, and MCC credentials tell you about a coach’s training and experience
• why clients often arrive wanting to solve issues around work, stress, or time management - only to uncover deeper questions about their lives
• how the idea of “good enough” can become a powerful framework when career, family, energy, and ambition are all competing for attention

Lena also shares why she is cautious about putting people into personality-type boxes. Instead, she works with metaphors, stories, feedback, and the client’s own lived experience. The goal is not to label who someone is, but to help them notice the patterns they bring to different challenges, opportunities, and stages of life.

For anyone balancing career growth with family life, questioning whether coaching could help them make better decisions, or simply wanting to understand what professional coaching is actually designed to do, this episode offers a grounded look behind the curtain.

By the end of the conversation, coaching emerges not as a performance or a source of ready-made answers, but as a space for clarity, honesty, courage, and possibility - where the coach helps you think better without taking over the thinking for you.