How can you manage difficult coaching sessions without burnout?

Mentally and emotionally preparing for a difficult coaching situation is crucial to maintain composure, empathy, and effectiveness. If the coaching session is likely to generate difficult emotions, practice techniques to manage those emotions effectively, such as deep breathing, mindfulness, or taking a short break before the session. Review your coachee's performance, past feedback, and any relevant information to be well-informed about the situation. Write out any difficult messages with language you want to use. Set clear intentions. Many leaders enter coaching conversations without a specific destination in mind. Clarify exactly what you’d like to have happen. This clarity will guide the conversation and ensure it stays on track.

Here are some tips to manage difficult coaching sessions to avoid burnout: - Establish clear boundaries to avoid overcommitment. - Practice self-care to maintain physical and mental well-being. - Seek peer support for sharing experiences and strategies. - Embrace continuous learning to enhance skills and effectiveness. - Recognize limits and seek additional support when needed.

The manager/coach needs to take the high road and chalk out the objective of the coaching session and ask for the coachees' suggestions for the same. This will give a heads-up to the trainees about what they are getting into and most likely will also unleash them from any anxiety of the face-to-face encounter. On the other hand, the manager/coach also will be better prepared to handle and bring solutions to the table having gone through the feedback of the trainees.

The coachee might not be sharing or explaining everything, and that's when active listening plays a crucial role in observing body language and non-verbal cues and reading between the lines. This might differ a bit for In-person conversation versus virtual conversation, as it could be a bit tough to identify such situations during virtual discussions. The coach needs to focus more on identifying and noting such energy changes, concentrate from the coachee's perspective, and figure out what might work best from the current context. Active listening and understanding the context helps to bring in Empathy from the coachee context perspective, and can focus on helping the coachee identify the possible solutions and next steps

Knowing when you can still partner with someone and acknowledging the right time to offer a different type of support. When the coaching question is out of the "coaching scope" for example when people start talking about deep rooted emotions, patterns or problematic behaviours or when they would like to understand "where it's coming from". This should be a sign for a coach to consider referring the coachee to a psychotherapist for example. The least you can do is share with your client what coaching is about; looking forward, a future focused approach with no need to "understand" or "analyse" certain patterns. Most of the times you can still coach someone after explaining what coaching actually is.

I've found it helpful to define the coaching contract and coaching agreement on the process, do's and don'ts, and the associated guidelines like frequency, mode of interaction, and cancelation/change of the schedule, to mention a few. Having an initial conversation with the client to check the chemistry helped in some instances. This way can be prepared from the client expectations perspective.

When we are talking about difficult sessions, since coach is working with his/her personality, for me it’s the right time to explore that personality in a more detailed manner. My tool for that is supervision - a reflexive practice that helps seeing the big picture, investigating parallel processes, blind spots, certain beliefs, emotional transfers, inner conflicts, cultural differences, games coach might play with the client or vice versa, etc.

For me it's about managing energy and emotions well. Knowing what triggers me and worries me. Managing my behaviours before the session to put me on the right mood and mental state. Burn out can be prevented by burning our good habits into the process.

The idea that is a “difficult coaching” most probably means that is a mismatch a long the way. The definition of point A and point B is the most fundamental process for the decision if the point B is a point that the coachee feels that the coach can support with. The burnout is happening when the coach becomes a tool and not an example of the process that the coach is applying. Walk the talk to become congruent and use coaching has a process for progress.

One thing I’ve learned while Coaching is that the first thing you have to take care of is the Coach. People depend on you being at your best. And although that is not always possible it is possible to take care of what you can control: sleep, diet, schedule and previous preparation. Also, and this is sometimes hard to admit to yourself, if you’re not psychologically fit that day to coach it’s better to cancel the session than to coach in a bad form. When you admit this to a client your moral authority will go up because you’ve been honest and human. Everyone has bad days, even them and it will increase trust and openness.

I prioritize regular breaks between sessions to decompress and reflect. This helps me approach each session with a fresh perspective and renewed energy. I also practice mindfulness and relaxation techniques to maintain my emotional equilibrium. Setting clear boundaries is crucial; I ensure that the challenges of a session don't infringe on my time. Additionally, I seek supervision or peer support when needed, providing an outlet to discuss and process challenging cases. Balancing empathy with emotional detachment is vital; I empathize with clients but avoid taking on their emotional burdens.