Your coaching superpower: The unforgettable performance partner

“The best ideas aren’t mine—they’re yours.”

A trusted thinking partner and performance coach who doesn’t give all the answers—they help you find your best ones. Level Five leaders work alongside sales leaders and other top performers, using intentional questions and insight to unlock what's next.

• Superhero persona: The Performance Partner

• Superpower: Catalytic coaching - Sparks self-discovery, sharpens thinking, and challenges leaders to stretch beyond what's comfortable toward what’s extraordinary. People don’t just show up around them—they level up.

• Signature Move: The Clarity Shift – Asks the question that stops you in your tracks… and starts you on a breakthrough path. Helps leaders move from momentum to mastery.

• Your Advantage Host: Mary Steiner

Coaching isn’t just about what you say. It’s about what you’re willing to hold.

By Jonathan Hodge

Coaching models are great.
But sometimes, the most transformative coaching move isn’t one that comes from a model.

It’s not the brilliant question.
It’s not the perfect next step.
It’s the moment when you don’t say anything at all.

Just presence.
Just space.
Just the quiet confidence to sit with someone without rushing them toward a solution.

That’s what makes this week’s Intangibles episode on the Level Five Coaching System so compelling, and where I want to take us one layer deeper.

Beyond the model: The power of presence

The ASPIRE model from our partners at Level Five is a gift. It’s structured, strategic, and packed with catalytic questions. It gives leaders a way to navigate performance challenges and move people from stuck to unstuck with purpose and clarity.

But here’s what’s equally important, even if it’s not printed on a slide:

Coaching isn’t just about what you say. It’s about what you’re willing to hold.

We coach best when we meet someone exactly where they are, not where we think they should be. That means resisting the pull to fix or finish too soon. It means allowing silence to breathe. And it means honoring the process as much as the outcome.

Especially in times of uncertainty, people don’t just need answers. They need to feel seen.

3 questions to sit with this week

1. Where in your leadership are you filling space that could be held instead? (What might emerge if you didn’t rush to fill the silence?)
2. When a teammate is stuck, do you stay with them or push past them? (What does your presence communicate in those moments?)
3. What would it look like to coach less for direction and more for discovery?

This week’s experiment: Hold the Space

The next time you’re in a coaching conversation:

• Notice your impulse to solve, reframe, or redirect.
•  Instead of acting on it, breathe.
• Say something like:
  - “Take your time.”
  - “What else is coming up for you?”
  - Or say nothing and let the moment sit.

Sometimes, the greatest clarity comes not from your next question but from your willingness to not ask it yet.

As Level Five puts it, coaching isn’t about giving answers; it’s about guiding discovery.
Holding space is how we show people we truly believe that.

Here’s to leading with presence, not just performance.

See you next episode,
—Jon