A balance of exchange

Over the years working as a professional coach, I have found that maintaining a balance of exchange when working with clients is key: aiming to be useful not going to helping or fixing mode.

Whilst empathy can be an important quality in coaching, it's important not to get lost in someone's story or allow yourself to be recruited to their narrative. This can have a debilitating impact on our own performance, the overall coaching impact, and our mental state. It is why supervision is so important in professions such as coaching, therapy and counselling.

There are lots of parallels for school leaders. In education we frequently hear about the need to be empathetic. Empathetic leadership seems to be buzz phrase now. In our experience of coaching school leaders all over the world, however, we find that leaders being over-empathetic can lose a sense of themselves which can take its toll. This really came to the fore during the pandemic with school leaders having to deal with a multitude of issues and has continued since.

While empathy has its place, it's also important to maintain a certain distance and not get too close or entangled, losing judgement and sight of what needs to be done. This allows leaders to maintain clarity as well as sanity!

Let's remember the importance of balance in our interactions with others and not feel pressured to place empathy in over-drive. We can sometimes feel guilty for not doing so but as German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger said:

‘Giving up the desire to rescue people is necessary if we truly respect them’.

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