Competent Coaches Are Courageous ... As Are Their Clients

As a member of the professional coaching community, you know we are guided by a set of competencies.  One aspect required of coaching competency is facilitating our client’s learning by creating awareness with the client and designing actions to apply the learning.  Have you considered how much courage it takes for your client to be successful in this?   Have you thought about how much courage is required of you?

Courage is necessary for learning to take place because it requires a person to look in the mirror and confront their own reality, face their critics and listen, seek feedback and listen, take action on their performance which often means moving outside their comfort zone.

Courage is asked of you, the coach, to speak truth to your client, role model accountability and change.  Without courage, you cannot make a difference.  You can’t ask your client to be courageous if you are not also.

So, what is courage?

When we peel back the onion about what courage requires, we discover it often means walking toward what you’d rather run from.  It means being vulnerable, perhaps admitting you don’t know everything, and that there is always more to learn. Having courage means connecting with self and others by lowering defensiveness, being present with your fear, feeling it, paying attention to it, noticing how it looks and feels in your body. Lack of courage is often felt as self-doubt and results in a retreat to the safe zone. “I was promoted by chance and I have no idea what to do now.”  When the client is not able to be courageous, what may show up in its place is fear.  Connecting with your fears is an act of courage.  Connecting with fearlessness is not, however, the same thing.  Fearlessness is courage being overused and the resulting behavior is “I was promoted by chance and even though I have no idea what to do now, I will fake it so no one will know.”  You may have heard that sentiment expressed by someone once or twice.

As the coach, you are able to be present with the client and recognize when fearlessness is taking over the courage necessary to lean in to learning and not retreat.  We can be the courage our clients need.

What do you think?  Is courage coachable?

I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU, ICFTN COACHES. 

What if you could reimagine your coaching practice?  How would you like to connect in new ways?  Your ICFTN Board is discussing the varied ways we can facilitate connection and professional development for chapter members. In April we began quarterly new member orientations. In June we will begin offering virtual professional development sessions in addition to the robust line up of live, face to face chapter meetings. This first session will be on the subject of Ethics. We have other ideas we are discussing but would like to hear from you about what else would make your membership in ICFTN valuable.

• What do you feel you are missing? What are your searching for?

• What are you being challenged to address in yourself? What new experiences do you need to have?

• What new story could you tell about your work if you stepped outside the usual discourse?

Let me hear from you at [email protected].  We are anxious to deliver maximum value for your membership. 

Another way for you to provide feedback will be in the annual ICF coach survey. You will be receiving a link from ICF to a survey in May. PwC conducts this comprehensive survey of the coaching industry exploring topics including:

• Industry size and revenue

• The business and practice of coaching

• Perspectives on industry trends, including technology, regulation and more

This research will yield insights that can help you grow your coaching business and understand where you fit into the marketplace, better understand the coaches in your community and make strategic decisions to contribute to the success of the Middle Tennessee coaching community. The research findings also help ICF lead the future of coaching, with data that informs resource allocation and provides clarity on how to best move the mission and vision of ICF forward.

Please look for the link and participate in this important research.

Donna Yurdin, ICFTN President