Subsequent to my coaching supervision course, I have reflected on the beliefs that inform my own coaching practice, and therefore my supervision, and how these are just one frame of reference, that could limit my capacity to stretch myself and others. Two years ago, I wrote this coaching manifesto, outlining my beliefs and the behaviors these lead to:
| Belief | Behavior |
| Developing People Is our Business. | I create more value and operate the business more efficiently with and through other people. |
| My legacy will be in the other people I have helped to achieve worthwhile and meaningful goals. | I help individuals to engage in an ongoing process of developing their potential. |
| People are motivated by autonomy, mastery and purpose | |
| Everyone is resourceful, creative and whole. | I help them to become independent, critical thinkers, working my way out of the coach role. I listen with acceptance, without judgment. |
| Everyone is responsible for their own life choices. | I help people to identify their best future story. I enable people to define their own objectives and methods for achieving them. I help people explore the choices open to them. |
| Empowerment comes from within. | I use a collaborative rather than a directive approach. I engage deep commitment, by coaching towards aspirations, dreams and desired states. |
| Everyone has strengths which can be made stronger, and their weaknesses can be compensated for to become irrelevant. | I focus on strengths to achieve desired change. |
| Everyone is looking for meaning in life. Everyone is more than capable of creating a better future. | I strive to understand what has meaning for individuals, what motivates them and what commits them to taking action. I ask questions that enable people to learn and grow, to have a more fulfilled life, transformational questions rather than transactional questions. I help individuals find their passion by following their energy. |
| Coaching is designed to help people improve their learning, performance and quality of life | |
| Failure provides great feedback, and everyone should have the chance to learn from mistakes. | I give honest feedback. |
| Positive, affirmative thinking is powerful. | I notice how the individual is becoming, growing and changing. |
| People are innately good. The person is not the problem, the problem is the problem. | I am a change agent, who serves the interests of those I coach. |
| Coaching is about being, not about doing. | I am curious about both the content and the emotion of issues. I am fully present with my coachees, to listen to them intently and to use my intuition to guide the next best question or observation for them. |
| It is my job to remove barriers and obstacles so people can attain the level of greatness they are destined for. | I examine and challenge assumptions, with a view to what more is possible. |
| Coaching focuses on the whole person | |
| Every life has a story made up of many elements, work, home, family, friends….People act within bigger systems. | I think systemically, taking a holistic perspective. |
| I do not work on people, I work with them | I regard the individual as an equal. I follow the individual’s thinking, using questions that will help him/her move forward from wherever he/she is at that moment |
Influenced by David Rock, Linda Page, Eric Berne, Brad Kolar, Brene Brown, Carol Dweck, David Burnham, Rosa Say, Allan Mackintosh
Some of these still stand true for me today, and I also recognise that in order to challenge others, I need to enlarge some of these. For example, everyone is resourceful, creative and whole; there are times when people will not have all of the answers within them, when something is completely new to them, for example. Instead of frustrating the coachee with questions to get them to dig deeper, it might be more appropriate to ask them where they can go/who they can talk to, to find out. Having read Blakey and Day’s book “Challenging Coaching”, I now prefer to say that I “trust the future potential of all”.
I also note that these beliefs come from a personal development perspective. What is missing is the organisation’s outlook. Given that I am an internal coach, it is clearly important that I figure out my beliefs about my contract with the organisation, to ensure that I am coaching and supervising ethically.
Therefore, I need to rethink the behaviors surrounding my belief that “Every life has a story made up of many elements, work, home, family, friends….People act within bigger systems”. As a result of this belief, I coach individuals on anything they wish to bring, believing that tackling one area of their life will have a ripple effect on their work performance. While I still believe this to be true, I also realise that the organisation might expect us to focus more of our time on areas that are more directly related to work.
Therefore, I would now add:
| Belief | Behavior |
| Since the organisation pays my salary, my contract is with both the individual and the organisation | I will always conduct a 3-way contracting process, and revisit periodically to measure progress; I am in service of both the individual AND the organisation, rather than one or the other, so faced with a dilemma, I shall connect both sets of truth to find a new truth that works for both (eg, coachee wanting to leave the organisation; this is good for the organisation as they become a potential client) |
| Boundaries are important; and boundaries can be broken for the sake of challenge | I do not work outside my own competence.
As an internal leadership development consultant and coach, I can change “hat”, to offer a different perspective, but only with consent |
| Ruthless compassion is essential to transformational coaching and supervision | Dig deep, to identify – and potentially change – beliefs and assumptions; enable them to see the possibilities. Increase their capacity to deal with future challenges. |
| If we can’t tell the truth, we can’t do the work | Say what I see to the client; decide how to handle the truth with the client; if a danger to themselves or others, escalate |
| Be the change I want to see in the world | Shift my own behaviour in order to help others to shift |
| Coaching is a profession | Through supervision, I hold others’ accountable for high standards of coaching; while at the same time, respecting their autonomy |
| I am an integrated learner | I listen to and act upon feedback |
I note some tension between these beliefs and those I articulated previously. I think this is a healthy tension, as it will enable me to stop and think, as a coach and supervisor, rather than rushing in with a fixed idea of how something should be.
While these beliefs can help me make decisions about which way to take coaching or supervision, I need to recognise that they are only one set of assumptions, and others may have different assumptions about how they coach. In future supervision sessions, I plan to ask my supervisees what assumptions inform their coaching, and how those may or may not limit them in their ethical decision-making.
