When Your Client Says “I Don’t Know” — What If It’s Not About the Client?

“I don’t know.”

Three ordinary words.

And probably three words every practicing coach has heard many times.

But what happens inside us as coaches when we hear them?

Do we stay curious?
Do we allow the silence?
Or does a quiet interpretation begin to form?

They want me to give them the answer.
They’re not taking ownership.
They’re waiting for me to solve it.
They’re resisting.

Perhaps we then reach for another coaching question, determined not to “do the work for the client.”

But before asking the next question, there may be something more important to notice:

What have I already assumed about this client?

When client ownership becomes the coach’s agenda

Client autonomy and ownership are fundamental to coaching.

Yet there is a subtle difference between trusting the client’s agency and needing the client to demonstrate agency in the way we believe they should.

Imagine a client coming to coaching feeling genuinely stuck.

They may be confused, overwhelmed, or simply unable to see a way through something yet.

They come hoping that this relationship might help them get out of the mud.

Meanwhile, the coach may be carrying a well-intentioned belief:

The client probably expects me to give them answers. I need to make sure they understand that coaching means finding their own answers.

So we ask:

“What does coaching mean to you?”

Perhaps it sounds like an open question.

But somewhere underneath it we may already be hoping to hear:

Coaching means I take responsibility and find my own answers.

Later, the client describes their challenge.

We ask:

“So, what would be helpful?”

And the client replies:

“I don’t know.”

Now notice how easily our original assumption can be confirmed.

There it is. They don’t want to take ownership.

But what if we are wrong?

Questions can be open while the coach is not

This is where coaching gets interesting.

A question can be grammatically open and still carry a hidden expectation.

The words may be beautifully phrased.

Our voice may be warm.

We may genuinely intend to be supportive.

And yet, underneath the question, something else may be present:

You should know.

You should choose.

You should take responsibility.

You should be resourceful.

Clients may never consciously identify that expectation.

But they may experience it.

And perhaps “I don’t know” is not resistance at all.

It may mean:

I genuinely don’t know yet.

I need some space.

I’m overwhelmed.

That question isn’t helping me.

I’m not ready to go there.

Or even:

I can sense that there is a right answer expected of me, but I don’t know what it is.

This is why I have become increasingly interested in a different possibility:

Sometimes we are no longer coaching the client in front of us. We are coaching our assumption about the client.

Before blaming the client, become curious about the relationship

It is very easy to locate the difficulty inside the client.

They are resistant.

They lack accountability.

They want advice.

They are not ready for coaching.

Perhaps.

But these are interpretations, not facts.

And once we believe them, they begin to shape how we listen.

They influence what we notice.

They influence which questions occur to us.

They influence our tone, our timing, our patience and perhaps even our capacity to remain present.

This is where ICF Competency 2 — Embodies a Coaching Mindset becomes much more than something we understand intellectually.

It invites us into ongoing reflective practice: to notice our own assumptions, biases, patterns and the impact of our thoughts and behaviours on the coaching relationship.

So the question shifts from:

“Why won’t this client take ownership?”

to:

“What am I bringing into this relationship that may be shaping what is happening between us?”

That is a very different inquiry.

“I don’t know” may be an invitation to presence

There is another temptation when we hear “I don’t know.”

We start working harder.

We search mentally for a more powerful question.

We reframe.

We probe.

We try another technique.

Sometimes that may be useful.

And sometimes the more skillful response is to stay with what is here.

To allow the silence.

To notice what is happening.

To resist the urge to manufacture movement.

This is where ICF Competency 5 — Maintains Presence becomes especially relevant, and where the movement toward MCC-level coaching becomes more visible.

At MCC level, the developmental edge is not simply asking better questions. It is the capacity to remain deeply responsive to what is emerging, without becoming attached to a particular direction or outcome.

So perhaps after:

“I don’t know…”

we pause.

Or gently ask:

“What is happening for you as you say, ‘I don’t know’?”

“Would it be useful to stay here for a moment?”

“Is it that you don’t know yet — or is my question not quite helping?”

Or perhaps:

“What would you need from me right now?”

The specific question matters less than the place from which we ask it.

Am I trying to get the client to perform coaching correctly?

Or am I genuinely meeting this person, here, now?

This is also about trust

ICF Competency 4 — Cultivates Trust and Safety — asks us to respect the client’s unique perceptions, ways of processing, beliefs and expressions.

That means the client should not need to fit our preferred model of what a “good coaching client” looks like.

This becomes especially interesting … Masterful coaching is not about becoming passive.

And trusting the client does not mean withdrawing ourselves from the relationship.

It means becoming sufficiently unattached to our own interpretation that we can truly encounter what is emerging.

At an earlier stage of development, we may ask:

“What powerful question should I ask after ‘I don’t know’?”

With greater maturity, perhaps the inquiry becomes:

“What might be happening for this client right now?”

And deeper still:

“What might be happening between us — and how might I be contributing to it?”

For me, that last question opens the door toward mastery.

Because the coach is no longer only listening to the client’s words.

The coach is also becoming aware of the relational field: the expectations, assumptions, reactions and subtle influences that may be shaping what becomes possible in the conversation.

And this is where coaching supervision becomes treasure

The answer, of course, is not to stop blaming the client and start blaming ourselves.

That would simply replace one judgement with another.

This is why I value coaching supervision so deeply.

Supervision gives us a place to bring these small, easily missed moments from our practice — moments that may otherwise disappear.

“My client kept saying, ‘I don’t know.’”

That one sentence can become extraordinarily rich material.

In supervision, we might become curious about:

What did “I don’t know” evoke in me?

What did I imagine it meant?

What do I believe a “good coaching client” should do?

What response was I secretly hoping my question would produce?

What happens inside me when the client cannot find an answer?

Do I become anxious?

Impatient?

Helpful?

Clever?

Do I start working harder than the client?

And where might I have learned that?

Suddenly, we are no longer simply analysing a coaching technique.

We are discovering the coach who is doing the coaching.

And sometimes, hidden inside an ordinary moment like “I don’t know,” there is a treasure: an assumption, a pattern, a need, or a belief we had not yet seen.

Once we can see it, we have more choice.

And with more choice, perhaps we can meet the client with more freedom, more presence, and less attachment to how we think coaching should unfold.

Perhaps “I don’t know” is not a problem to solve

The next time your client says:

“I don’t know.”

Before reaching for the next powerful question, perhaps become interested in the moment itself.

What is happening for the client?

What is happening in you?

What is happening between you?

And what assumptions have quietly entered the room?

Because sometimes the developmental edge is not learning what else to ask the client.

It is becoming increasingly able to notice who we are being while we ask.

And perhaps that is one of the movements from competent coaching toward coaching mastery:

less attachment to how coaching should unfold,
more capacity to meet what is actually here.

Sometimes “I don’t know” is not where the coaching stops.

It may be where the deeper coaching — and the coach’s own learning — begins.

References & further reading

• International Coaching Federation — 2025 ICF Core Competencies — this supports your discussion of Competencies 2, 4 and 5, including coaching mindset, trust and safety, and presence.

• International Coaching Federation — MCC Minimum Skills / Criteria for Assessing MCC — this grounds your discussion of the movement toward MCC-level presence and responsiveness.

• International Coaching Federation — Coaching Supervision Competencies — particularly relevant because ICF explicitly describes supervision as developing self-awareness, reflection, awareness of biases/blind spots, and understanding the coach’s impact.