After hosting a group supervision session and observing 3 live coaching sessions, this made me reflect on the two key things we bring to the coaching space: Being and Doing.
So often we’re preoccupied by the questions we ask, how we ask them, our competencies and “technical skills”. They are of course essential. A long-winded, compound question can create confusion and leave the client wondering where they are, or make them think a lot more than necessary. Especially when they’re exploring more subtle, emotional content, a complicated question can disconnect them from their heart and start to intellectualise. So the quality of our questions and the technical skills we bring to the space are very important.
This is what I mean by Doing. The interventions we use, the questions we choose, and their quality from a competency perspective.
But we often focus on the Doing to the detriment of the other half of it: our Being.
We don’t realise it, but each one of us brings a certain quality to our coaching which comes from deep within ourselves. This internal quality is subtle, but always there, even when we’re stressed, tired, in flow or present with our client.
Witnessing these 3 live coaching sessions demonstrated 3 very different types of presence. Just through the coach’s way of being in the space, created a significant impact on how the session “felt”. How the session “feels” impacts where we might go, how deep we explore, and what we might enable for our clients.
When you reflect on your coaching, to what extent do you consider these two aspects in balance? Do you consider your innate abilities and skills, or do you focus solely on the interventions or models you have used?
Especially for us Highly Sensitive Coaches, we can bring immense additional value to our sessions by focusing more on the quality of our presence in the space and what that facilitates for our clients - and not on learning new exercises or tools or models.
I invite you to reflect on one key quality you bring to the coaching space - if you strip away all the questions and models, what is the essence that’s left?
If you are a Highly Sensitive Coach and you want to bring more Being in your coaching, from a space that’s authentic to your HSP nature, you can get in touch to talk about how I can support you as a Mentor & Supervisor for HSP coaches.
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