Coaching is a professional partnership between a coach and a client in an empowering environment. The purpose of any form of coaching is to bring about lasting changes in beliefs and thus the accompanying behaviours. This is best achieved when the client has unconditional trust and fail-safe intimacy. You bet these to be easier said than done! …and this makes the process of professional coaching so much satisfying and fulfilling for the client and the coach alike. Trust can be held as the most basic of all coaching hygiene. With trust given, intimacy in the coaching relationship grows so that the client can share his/her vulnerabilities with the coach and more importantly, turn those insights and vulnerabilities into potent tools to embrace newer beliefs and behaviours.
Coaching relationship can be looked into like any other form of professional engagement in the sense that, the client expects clear outcomes and holds the coach with an expectation that s/he will undertake the journey together. This coaching journey is expected to be a process of revelation for both the coach and the client- Trust and Intimacy in the coaching relationship act as elixir. Many years back one of the business leaders spoke to me about coaching as a relationship where the coach doesn’t need to exert him/herself as a ‘coach’ and compared the process as a gentle breeze of air which you could feel only and can’t see! How subtle is the metaphor! A coaching process doesn’t have to be an act of ‘into the eyes’ but of excellence in spontaneity- both for the client and coach.
When a coach invites a client to be his/her true self and go-inside, really deep, so as to establish a strong connect with life’s purpose and values, the coaching process is in full bloom. The fragrance of this would evoke the client to reveal for him/ herself the innate resources and options which was hitherto untapped of by the client. The coach primarily does this by the asking the client powerful questions and deep listening. He is non-judgemental and allows the client to explore and express his/her natural gifts and life-purposes. This is the moment where new resources are explored and the client is made more resourceful by none other than him/herself. A coach fully shares the client’s agenda and is prepared to be vulnerable with the client and have the client be vulnerable with the coach. In essence, they’re co-creating the coaching relationship being equal partners in the process.
The following actions from the coach would help create an atmosphere of trust and intimacy with the client,
- Establishing coaching agenda- Begin with the end in mind: Getting the client clearly articulate the goals of engagement, the measures of success and the respective roles that the client and the coach have in the coaching relationship. This will make the whole process transparent and the partnership established from the word ‘go’. A coach is not a consultant, a mentor, a trainer or a psychologist. This basic step would create right expectations from the process and the coach thereby creating the building blocks of a mutually trusting relationship.
- (Deep)Listening with intent to understand the client: As a coach you would do great service to yourself and of course the client by deep listening without being judgemental. Holding client in all faith and fairness is the first step towards creating an element trust. Providing the client a fail-safe environment in order to explore his/her vulnerabilities and being truthful to oneself will help connect with deeper meaning and resources in life. In this way, the coach respects the client’s agenda without imposing his own. After all, coaching is a process of guided self-discovery. Being fully present in the moment and with the client is then natural offshoot of deep listening.
- Never divulge any of the client’s information: It’s hara-kiri of sorts! The coach receives all information from the client with deep humility and confidence. By revealing him/herself, the client is holding the coach in great responsibility and making both of them vulnerable in the process. Both of them are equal partners in the process. The coach has deep faith and trust in the process while client has in him.
- Actively create a safe place for the client: Each strand in a coach’s communication- verbal & non-verbal endeavours to create the ‘safe place’ to be in no matter what the current state is! This fail-safe atmosphere encourages the client to delve deep inside without being asked to do so. This is the beginning of recognizing the current pattern and then in a thought-provoking manner the coach askes the client to ‘interrupt’ that pattern. This non-judgemental and empathetic act of coach helps his client move forward in the process of guided self-discovery and initiative on permanent change of belief and behaviour.
- Be explorative not prescriptive in your approach: The coach must respect the client’s view of the situation and doesn’t exhibit any signs of his interests or views of the situation. The coach begins the coaching journey being ignorant of the client’s state and trusts the process of coaching for a guided self-discovery for the client and enlightenment as a coach. The coach is ready to explore his own vulnerabilities for the coaching relationship to flourish. He along with the client is ready to explore possibilities and empowers the client to decide for him/herself.
- Walk-the-talk & talk-the-walk: A coach’s most authentic self should bear the stamp of integrity. Right from smaller procedural elements such as showing up on time for the coaching engagement to bigger things such as maintaining the privacy of the client should be genuine and the coach should walk-the-talk. Keeping any promises as part of the coaching conversation should be held sacrosanct. For the client’s smallest of the accomplishments the coach must acknowledge and celebrate, in other words, talk-the-walk. While he does so, he also needs to keep a ‘dissociated’ approach from the entire event so as to avoid personally getting entangled in the process. This might require practice and after sometimes this comes as natural and spontaneous where he doesn’t need to ‘act’ as a coach
While these behaviours of the coach will ensure that the trust takes root in the coaching process, these are to be demonstrated throughout the engagement. This will, over a period of time, help him coach for ‘being-self’ moving beyond the ‘doing-self’ of the client. By encouraging the client to connect at ‘deeper-level’ to explore various resources within, the coach is weaving the magic of long-lasting changes.
sadhanism's blog 