What Actually Came Up in Coaching Sessions in March 2026
Every month I share what is actually showing up in my coaching sessions. Not theory. Not trending topics. The real conversations happening behind closed doors with executives, entrepreneurs, and leaders who are navigating more than most people around them realize.
March was heavy. It had the kind of weight that builds when the world feels uncertain and you are the person everyone is looking to for steadiness. It is the kind of thing that comes up in executive coaching and leadership coaching constantly, but rarely gets talked about publicly.
Four themes kept showing up across sessions this month. That thread is psychological safety. The presence or absence of it shaped every conversation I had in March. We often think of psychological safety in just the organizational context, but through March’s themes, it is clear it spills over into life, friendships, and relationship dynamics.
Layoffs Are Still Happening. And They Are Affecting Everyone.
I want to be direct about this. Layoffs are still happening. Across industries. And the impact goes far beyond the people who lost their jobs.
In March, I worked with leaders who were not laid off. They kept their roles. But they were left holding the weight of what happened around them.
Survivor’s guilt is real. It sounds like “why them and not me” and “I should be grateful I still have a job” and “I feel terrible for feeling stressed when they lost everything.”
But it does not stop at guilt.
These are the same leaders now managing teams that are rattled. People are nervous. People are watching. The trust that took years to build can erode in a single all-hands meeting. And the leaders I coach are absorbing all of that while also being nervous themselves.
Nobody talks about that part. The leader who has to hold the room steady while their own ground is shaking.
It is exponentially harder to create psychological safety for your team if you do not have it yourself. And right now, a lot of leaders do not.
The work in sessions this month was not about strategy. It was about processing. Giving these leaders a space where they did not have to perform composure. Where they could say “I am scared too” without it being a liability.
That is what coaching does in moments like this. It gives you a place to be honest so you can go back out there and lead from something real, not from a performance of steadiness.
When a Difficult Coworker or Boss Triggers Something Deeper
This theme is always present in coaching. Always. But March had a specific flavor to it.
The pattern: someone at work is difficult. Communication does not feel fluid. You feel unheard. Maybe dismissed. Maybe managed around instead of talked to directly.
And the instinct is to focus entirely on the other person. What they are doing wrong. How they should be different. Why they are the problem.
But here is where coaching gets interesting.
One client said something this month that stopped us both: “This person does not trigger anyone else the way they trigger me.”
That is the moment the real work starts.
It is not about excusing bad behavior. Difficult people exist. Poor communicators exist. Leaders who lack self-awareness exist. That is all true.
But when someone gets under your skin in a way that is disproportionate to the situation, there is something yours in that reaction. Something about your own wiring, your own history, your own patterns around feeling unheard or undervalued.
The difficult person is real. But the intensity of your reaction to them is information about you.
This is not comfortable work. Nobody wants to hear that the coworker who drives them crazy might be activating something deeper. But that is also where the freedom is. Because you cannot control the other person. You can only understand why they have so much power over your emotional state.
When we do that work, the dynamic shifts. Not because the other person changes. Because you do.
Entrepreneurs Who Love Their Work but Fear the Economy
This one is specific to the entrepreneurs I coach, and it showed up consistently in March.
These are people who love what they do. They are good at it. They want to grow. They see opportunity.
And the economy feels terrifying.
The news cycle is loud right now. Every headline is designed to make you feel like the ground is shifting. And when you run a business, that noise does not stay abstract. It gets personal fast. It sounds like “should I really invest in this right now” and “what if I expand and everything contracts” and “maybe I should just wait.”
The waiting is where people get stuck.
Not because waiting is always wrong. Sometimes it is strategic. But in March, what I saw was waiting that was driven by fear, not by data. Decisions stalling because the feeling of risk was louder than the actual risk. This is where the entrepreneur mindset work becomes essential, because the fear of business growth during uncertainty can paralyze people who are otherwise decisive and clear.
Fear and risk are not the same thing. Fear is loud. Risk can be measured. The work is learning to separate the two so you can move with clarity instead of paralysis.
The coaching work here was about separating real risk from perceived risk. Getting specific. What is actually at stake versus what feels at stake because you read three alarming headlines before breakfast.
When entrepreneurs can name the real risk clearly, they can make decisions. When they are swimming in generalized fear, they freeze. March was about getting out of the freeze.
Loneliness in Leadership and in Life
This one surprised me a little. Not because friendships do not come up in coaching. They do. But March brought a wave of it.
The theme was not about being alone. Most of the people I work with have friends, partners, colleagues, communities. The theme was about feeling alone inside those relationships.
Different life stages make this complicated. Your closest friend from ten years ago might be in a completely different chapter now. You still love each other. But the conversations do not land the same way. The things that bonded you feel distant. You show up for each other, but something essential has shifted.
And nobody really teaches you how to grieve that. Because the person is still there. It is not a loss in the traditional sense. It is a quiet erosion that you do not notice until you realize you feel lonely at brunch.
Loneliness is not about how many people are around you. It is about whether you feel safe enough to be honest with any of them.
There it is again. Psychological safety. Even in friendship.
What came up in sessions was not about fixing friendships or finding new ones. It was about being honest about the loneliness without making it mean something is wrong with you. About recognizing that life stages shift, and that does not make you a bad friend. It makes you a human in motion.
The Thread: Psychological Safety Is Everything
I said at the top that psychological safety was the thread this month, and I meant it.
Leaders who do not feel safe enough to admit they are scared. Professionals who do not feel safe enough to say “this person really gets to me.” Entrepreneurs who do not feel safe enough to take a calculated risk. People who do not feel safe enough to be honest with their own friends.
When psychological safety is missing, everything gets harder. Decisions stall. Resentment builds. Exhaustion deepens. Connection fades.
And the thing about psychological safety is that it starts with you. With your willingness to be honest about what you are actually experiencing instead of performing the version of yourself that feels safest.
That is the work. In every session. Every month.
If Any of This Landed
This series is not prescriptive. I am not handing out solutions. I am naming what I see and inviting you to notice where you see yourself.
If something here made you pause, that pause is worth paying attention to.
If you want a space where you can be honest about what is actually going on, that is what coaching is. A consult call is just a conversation, not a pitch.