In the field of professional coaching, the coach’s ability to recognise his or her clients as naturally creative, resourceful and whole is a matter of scrutiny. The International Coach Federation, for example, includes this belief as part of its definition of coaching and looks for evidence of this belief when assessing coaches for the different levels of professional credentialling that it offers.
Why does it matter that coaches hold this belief? Coaching aims to help individuals to access their own inner resources in order to achieve the goals they set out for themselves and to overcome the challenges that they face along the way. In other words, coaching aims to support the coaching client in finding his or her own way, rather than to foster a dependency on the coach. Since research demonstrates that our beliefs are self-fulfilling, it helps to adopt a belief about the client that benefits the client and raises the effectiveness of a coaching partnership.
Perhaps there’s another side of the coin – it matters that coaches hold themselves as creative, resourceful and whole. The coach who doubts his own capability may use his time with his clients to generate and gather evidence about his own capability rather than in support of his client’s agenda. In this way, coaching becomes a support to the coach and there is every risk that the client loses out.
How does this presupposition apply when the coach is a line manager, using the coaching style of leadership to support a member of staff? One manifestation of this style illustrates very powerfully the issues involved. When a leader is faced with poor performance, the belief that the leader and the member of staff concerned are both creative, resourceful and whole enables the leader to differentiate between the person concerned and his or her performance. With this distinction in mind, the leader is able to speak openly about performance issues and, for example, to say:
“There are aspects of your performance in this job that aren’t meeting the standards we need. Perhaps this is the right job for you and you need help to develop the skills you need to succeed. Perhaps this just isn’t the right job for you and you need help to find out what is the right job for you – and to move into that job. Either way, in the coming days and weeks I’ll be working with you to support you in finding the right way forward”.
Many times, in interviewing outstanding leaders, I have observed that a statement like this one – rooted in firm beliefs – builds trust and enables the leader and the person concerned to work in coaching partnership to find an effective way forward. Whether the outcome is a change of performance in the job or a change of job, the individual being coached comes out a winner. In this way, the leader is able to execute his responsibilities to the organisation he works for whilst also helping the individual to succeed.
If you would like to learn more about the presuppositions that underpin coaching or to undertake exercises to test and develop your own presuppositions, keep reading. In the coming days, I’ll be exploring additional presuppositions and offering exercises for you.