The Role Of A Coach – Support AND Challenge

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Adventure and daring – evocative words, aren’t they? These are the words which stayed with me following a recent talk on “International Coaching” as part of International Coaching Week. The workshop was led by the highly experienced coach and facilitator, Marie O’Hara, who works in Lausanne, Switzerland. One of the discussions which arose was around how far we, as coaches, support managers in terms of being “supportive but daring”.  Should not the coaching journey enable the coachee to “welcome exploration and adventure”?

This reminded me to consider again some of the key responsibilities of a coach.

On one hand:

• To provide a safe environment for the coachee to share
• Reflecting back the positives of what is shared
• To ask insightful and timely questions
• To listen and listen and listen
• To act as a sounding board in terms of possibilities and opportunities

On the other hand:

• To challenge
• To enable a shift in thinking
• To challenge blind spots
• To support the creation of alternative scenarios

A beautiful interplay of stretch and support.

We see this marriage played out in the workplace too. Organisations who do push their employees to give, to stretch, to work outside their comfort zones, to grow. And equally,  fantastic workplaces where the individuals feel rewarded and supported and safe. It’s great to support individuals thriving in these workspaces! I have also worked with many organisations where this is, unfortunately, not the case. Where managers feel de-motivated through lack of personal recognition, talents unrecognised and under-utilised, and where no guidance or support is provided. Where individual’s ambitions and talents are not discovered and where there is no organisational ambition.

Wherever your starting point, a good coach provides the right amount of challenge and support for individuals to discover what might be next, how they personally could develop and grow and what changes they might want to make around them.

So what about yourself?

• What might you dare to do differently?
• What support do you need and how will you get this?
• What could be….?
• If change were possible, what would you do? What will you do?
• What will you commit to right now?

Find a coach who will challenge and encourage you to be more than you currently are. A coach who will open up blind spots, who will believe in you and enable you to believe in yourself. I love this quote from Picasso, perfectly summarising the action to do what you may initially feel is impossible:

“I am always doing things I can’t do. That is how I get to do them.”

Your coach should enable you to dare, be adventurous and to explore new goals and dreams. As C.S. Lewis proposed:

“You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream.”

And your coaching journey with your coach is just that – a journey.  It can begin in a supportive space, developing trust, enabling self-awareness, providing a safe environment.  And the journey progresses, with your coach holding up the mirror, confronting issues and enabling you to stretch, dare, move outside of your comfort zone.

You will experience pulls and pushes, support and challenge, affirmation and provocation, care and confrontation.

Stretch and support. Where are you now?

• How stretched do I feel?
• How far is my potential being recognised and discovered?
• How supported do I feel?
• What support do I need?

If you would like to discuss coaching for yourself, please get in touch.

As Oliver Wendell Holmes Jnr. famously proposed:

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience, can never go back to its old dimensions”.