Why I No Longer Steal Problems: My Path

The turn of the year is always a moment to pause. When I look at my life today, it feels different than it did three years ago.

Until 2023 my life was shaped by movement, of the physical kind. For a good ten years I commuted between my home and workplaces that all had one thing in common: they were not just around the corner. Eindhoven, Seoul, Dornbirn, Villingen-Schwenningen. I valued those roles: the complexity, the responsibility, the chance to actually shape things. But I paid a price. Quality of life was left behind on motorways and in departure halls all over the world. It became clear: I want to keep things in motion, but no longer just myself from A to B.

830 kilometres to a single insight

To find out what the next chapter should look like, I swapped the suit for a hiking backpack. I walked the Camino de Santiago. From St. Jean Pied de Port via Santiago de Compostela to Finisterre, to the proverbial end of the world. 830 kilometres that shifted my view of leadership and helping.

On the way I quickly noticed what truly carries me: deep, honest exchange with people. I wanted to help. But I first had to learn how to help properly.

A lesson from a Dutch pilgrim

There was that one evening that moved a lot of things. As so often, I had taken care of organising dinner for our pilgrim group. Two companions could not find the restaurant, despite the address and GPS coordinates. I was restless, wanted to set off, find them, solve the problem.

A Dutch pilgrim watched me, took me aside and asked:

“We are on a religious path, aren't we?"

I confirmed, irritated.

“And you know the Ten Commandments?"

Another yes. What she said next still sits deep with me today:

“One commandment says: thou shalt not steal. And you shall not steal other people's problems either. After all, they are theirs."

Leadership means leaving the problem with the other person

In that moment I noticed something I had not wanted to see before. Throughout my entire working life I had often “stolen problems". I had presented solutions instead of enabling people to find their own. It was efficient. It felt competent. And at its core it was a subtle form of convenience, my convenience. Whoever takes over the problem keeps control. Whoever leaves it has to tolerate it.

The pilgrim had named a sore spot without commenting on it. I later found exactly that as a central principle in coaching: a good question opens a space. It does not deliver an answer.

From doer to companion

Back home, I signed up for coaching training. What sounds like a logical next step was in truth a longer reckoning with old reflexes. Operational leadership had trained me to solve problems quickly. Coaching demands the opposite: tolerating that a client finds a solution themselves, even if it takes longer or turns out differently than I would have chosen. I have described this shift in more detail elsewhere; for me, personally, it was the harder part of the training.

Today I see the sentence from the Camino as a quiet leitmotif of my work. I coach leaders under pressure, in complex situations, with real consequences. It would be tempting to offer them quick answers. But the answers that truly hold rarely come from the outside. They are already inside the client, and my task is to help them be heard.

Without stealing them.

Further reading

• European Coaching Association (ECA) – My professional association; standards and ethical guidelines for coaches.