Coaching Presence- A Key Competency to Gift your Client With

In my previous blog I have written about the critical roles trust and intimacy play in coach-client relationship. Trust is an outcome of behaviours done consistently over a period of time- no short cuts here! Long period of staying ‘invested’ in a relationship with transparency and respect helps achieve this. How do you achieve these in your coaching relationship? Your time is ticking!

I am exploring one of the building blocks to achieve the state of trust and intimacy with your client through what we call- coaching presence! The meaning of word ‘Presence’ is to be available or to exist at a certain place or time. Coaching presence then, is to be fully present with your client- moment-by-moment and at times in physical reference too. We will explore the nuances of coaching presence and how to effectively achieve it in a coaching relationship.

A typical coaching session can have transcripts that might read as,

Coach: “…Hello Jim! How’re you doing this evening?”

Client: “Hi Peter. I am great. Thank you.”

Coach: “Is there anything that you need to ‘clear’ out before we begin today’s session?”

Here the coach is attempting to ‘clear’ out any pattern that might be playing heavy on client’s mind and can potentially keep him/ her away from being fully present in the coaching process. It’s a pattern interrupt. Similarly, for a coach to be the most effective it’s equally, if not more, important to be fully present 100% with his client. He’s ‘in-sync’ and fully ‘dancing-in-the-moment’ with the client thereby brings the most authentic-self as a coach. In this context of defining coaching presence this observation from Silsbee (2008) is profound “…Presence is a state of awareness in the moment, characterised by the felt experiences of timelessness, connectedness and a larger truth.”

Let’s see why it’s such a critical competency of a coach to exhibit coaching presence as a process,

• ‘Safe-space’ for the client: Coaching presence helps create the safe space for the client where she can go deep inside to dig out the inner-most gifts and resources. It’s critical for the client in order to create a different reference-frame where solutions emerge
• ‘Co-creating the magic of coaching relationship’: Master coaches would always go by the client’s agenda and ready to experiment and explore each other’s vulnerabilities- nothing seems rigid in this game, always fluid to take a new route. The coach in this state cares little about the process and smoothly glides through with agility, innovation and mutual learning as the hallmark.
• Establishing the most authentic self of the coach: Being fully present and in-the-moment will help establish the authenticity in the coaching process and relationship. The coach moves to the state similar to ‘unconscious competence’ in learning and coaching.

The very essence of coaching presence by a coach will make the client lower his/ her guard and explore the gifts and resources deep within. The coach helps the client explore and experiment with various thoughts, ideas and plans tapping her own resources- the coach is fully listening- a deep listening and no place for judgements here.

For professional coaches, the mastery over coaching presence is a journey like any other competency-building. Every coach progresses through a maturity continuum from being trained to attaining mastery. As one moves up the curve these skills become innate and spontaneous. However, the following logical steps might help new coaches gain proficiency faster and make this capability all natural,

• Self-awareness & reflection: Being actively self-aware in the initial coaching episodes and through training a coach can take the initial journey. Reflection is a key element.
• Meditation: Meditation is shown to have favourable effect in developing presence and ‘mindfulness’
• Video-taping initial episodes should help the coach review his own process and supervision by master coaches
• Centring and deep breathing help calm nerves and helps the mind be fully-present
• Developing a mind-set to let go of the process without ignoring the elements and their deeper connect to help the client

When a coach undergoes his journey towards mastering the coaching presence, he will soon realise that coaching steps and processes come naturally to him and doesn’t require exerting his ‘coach’s hat’. Like any other professional- a sportsperson or a singer, the coach effortlessly flows through his coaching. In other words, coaching presence gives a coach his ‘sweet-spot’ in coaching relationship.

Let’s examine how does coaching presence impact the coaching relationship?

• With coaching presence in full swing a coach transcends to ‘Being’ coaching from ‘Doing’ coaching- in other words, it allows client to connect with deeper-self (Being) from the superficial one (Doing)
• Higher order trust between the coach and the coachee leading to superior and lasting outcomes
• Helps develop presence in the coachee too. Research into clients’ behaviour establishes that they start unconsciously develop their own presence and hence moving from quick-fixes to permanent solution

With coaching presence a coach innovates and demonstrates flexibility in the process and learning. He is equally vulnerable and might not know the client’s state and hence it makes the coach be more effective and connect with the client faster and deeper. A master coach with superior coaching presence can co-create the entire coaching experience in a magical fashion like building the aircraft while flying it. This being one of the competencies laid out by the International Coach Federation(ICF), can be built with experience and being self-aware. The coaching relationship can be highly fulfilling with coaching presence.

How do you work on building your coaching presence?

A-Z of Professional Coaching: ‘A’ for Awareness in Client

A professional coaching relationship is special in the sense that it has ‘human-potential movement’ (if I may coin that term) at its core and thereby has a super-ordinate goal much beyond performance goals alone. A holistic coaching framework hence should address both ‘Doing’ and ‘Being’ part of an individual. In that sense, the role of a coach as someone who holds a mirror to the client for increasing her self-awareness and inviting to dig deeper into herself to treasure-hunt the natural gifts and talents. This is very critical and different from some other relationships such as mentoring, training, counselling and consulting. The coach is no expert in the client’s domain of work and still gets the client achieve the best of herself is through inviting her tap into richer and fuller resources that might have been buried deep inside. This brings up the competency of a coach as creating awareness in the client as one of the cornerstone capabilities for a coach.

We have spoken of coaching as a process in guided self-discovery. The coach’s prime tool in this journey is powerful questioning whereby the client is invited to go deeper and explore the innermost beauties and come up with solutions to the issues at hand. The coach obviously has no agenda of his own and goes by the agenda of the client. This is critical in creating a safe space for the client to reveal those magnificent talents and gifts. The whole coaching journey is exploratory in nature and often both the coach and client have no clue what’s next to be discovered albeit they have the guiding philosophies and a deep faith in one’s true gifts and talents.

Why is creating awareness in a client such a critical piece in coaching relationship?

Coaching is not for quick-fixes but sustainable changes, mostly in behaviours and beliefs. These are to be effected through inside-out approach rather than the other way. Tapping into one’s resources, beliefs and reference-frames are the levers to bring about these long-lasting changes. A coach often asks the client to act from adissociated state. This is similar to visualize oneself playing out on the centre-stage from an audience place in a theatre or similar to a director seeing the actor playing out the part in front of the camera. This dissociated state creates profound insights about the performance as whole and then as the coach coaxes the client into certain action (using thought-provoking questions) for her to bring about the desired changes- both Doing & Being selves! The client generates solutions and the coach allows her to pursue them. There is no hint of the coach dictating any solution to the client.

The obvious discussion then should be on how to create awareness in a client during coaching conversations?

Before we go to the above, let me be upfront in saying that for a coach to create awareness in a client it’s a pre-requisite for the coach to be fully aware of his own thoughts, prejudices, biases and likings. Otherwise, he might run the risk of unduly influencing and colouring the thoughts and beliefs of the client- not a desirable thing in coaching! The coach can successfully create a safe and explorative environment for the client by asking powerful questions to shift reference-frames, challenge existing beliefs and a creating coaching presence for the client. The following approaches to create awareness in a client are well documented and practiced,

• Powerful questioning: The critical importance of incisive questions in coaching has been well documented. The premise that a client has all the answers and solutions to issues within themselves – the coach only helps through exploration and the process himself explores all possibilities and learns more about the client.
• Silence in a coaching conversation: A master coach would often ask the client powerful questions and practices deep listening where silence is an integral part. Often the client upon contemplation comes up with responses such as- ‘Wow! That’s terrific – never thought of that earlier’. This is a cusp in self-awareness where the coach practices silence and allows the client to further go deeper and continue that serious contemplation. Any input from the coach at this juncture could prove to be counter-productive and might shunt the free-flowing thought process of the client. Questions are useful at the two ends of tis contemplation continuum- at the beginning of the process where powerful questions stirs up the client and again towards the end where the client hints of some deep- revelations and then the coach tries to funnel down the process. Often you know that the awareness in a client is imminent when you see the client going silent and in reflective mode.
• Allowing the client to explore every possible strand of thought chain:Master Coaches are themselves as much explorer as their clients. They are driven by exploration rather than fixed solutions and their invitation to the client for the same far exceeds any possible hint of solution. Periodic encouragement with phrases such as ‘Wow’, ‘How magnificent is that’,‘Wonderful’ are catalysts that propel the client further in the journey. A coach might ask the client for confirmation- ‘What is this awareness all about, could you please share?’ or a simple statement such as ‘Allow yourself the magnificence of newly explored awareness’

 What next after Awareness? From Awareness to Action!

With the client gaining increased awareness about self, a belief or simply behaviour what next for her? The coach being fully present in the moment with the client cajoles the client what she would like to do with this heightened sense of awareness. Usually, the client contemplates and commits action based on the new found awareness. There are times when the client might wish to stay with the awareness for some more time and it’s perfectly right for the coach to allow the client to sink in with the sense of awareness and stay with it. It’s the client’s prerogative to decide the course of action and its timing once the awareness has set in. After all, clients action and her commitment will largely depend on how deep and touching are these newly discovered awareness.