Coaching Across Race in These Dynamic Times

By Anita Sanchez, Ph.D., published in Coaching Perspectives: The Association for Coaching Global Magazine, October 2020 bit.ly/CPshare 

Lao Tzu said, ‘She/he who knows others is learned and intelligent; s/he who knows oneself is wiser still’.  I’ve found, in decades of coaching and training in diversity and inclusion, that when I am successful in coaching across race and culture, both my client and I come away with greater learnedness and wisdom.

 When you commit to being truly effective in coaching cross-culturally, coaching across race, you may discover as much or more about yourself and the larger realities that exist, than your client. This is particularly true for coaches from majority groups, though it applies to all of us. Similarly, white leaders routinely report that, when they mentor People of Color and other diverse groups, they are convinced they learn more than what they give their mentee. It is a beautiful example of the coaching dance, where we both grow through our engagement. 

3 insights into cross-cultural coaching: A never-ending journey 

In service to the goal of great coaching across race and culture, here are three foundational keys to being a genuinely effective coach for an individual (or a team) from different race group than your own:

1.      Continually open yourself to the recognition that your understanding of the world is missing essential data.  This requires a commitment to learning to see the world through different eyes, letting go of an unconscious insistence that your perspective is the “right” view of the world. 

To do so, we need to recognize, and learn about, our own culture and the ways in which it frames our understanding and expectations of the world. When we understand how we have been trained to interpret situations and behaviors, we can begin to see how we might misunderstand what others, with different cultural frames, feel and do and believe. 

Without this insight into our own life training, we are going to be blind to the ways in which we impose our way of being on our clients, through parochial insistence that our way is the only way or ethnocentric assertion that my way is the best way. If we aspire to cross-culturally effective coaching, we have to work toward achieving a multicultural perspective that there are many good ways of knowing and operating in the world; we need to challenge ourselves to be open to the many ways of understanding and experiencing the world that come from our different cultures. 

2.      Believe the coachee’s experience is real, that their personal encounters with individual bias and systemic racism are a fact. When we accept that, the coachee does not have to expend energy convincing us. We can then work with honoring them and being present to them as they come up with their own insights and solutions to the problems and systemic barriers they face, as well as the opportunities that arise.

Recently, a white coach told me that she kept telling her Black client how to create partnerships and the Black client kept saying, ‘They won’t trust me or hire me that way’. The coach kept trying to get her to see her negative assumption(s) were holding her back. The white coach would say, ‘How do you know unless you try?’. Upon reflection, the white coach owned that she did not believe her client, that she was not deeply hearing her client, that she wasn’t seeing through her client’s eyes. As a coach, you can create so much power and safety for that Black woman client by believing her experience, recognizing that is different than yours.  Furthermore, the white coach I was working with realized that she was actually, unknowingly, asking her client to take on not only biased individuals, but also sizeable anti-Blackness racism in the organisational system. The white coach realized that she could provide a lot more support by believing the client. With this container of trust, the Black client could feel acknowledged and supported to move forward. A racially aware, culturally responsive coach is thus able to support co-creating strategies that are more appropriate, and realistically safer, for the client. 

3.      Even more consciously use the power of listening. All too often, organisations normatively avoid allowing discussion of race. Leaders look to go anywhere else, making it difficult, even hazardous, to speak about experiencing racial marginalization and prejudice. After decades of turning a deaf ear, the murder of George Floyd opened peoples’ eyes and hearts to the truth that people of darker skin around the world have a very different experience than others do with law, business, housing, and other institutions.

We, as coaches, can open the door, listening with empathy, holding the coachee of Color in the highest positive possible light. We can listen without judgement, to learn about and understand the impact of their experiences on their life and their world view. The act of simply listening, allowing an individual to speak their experience and be fully heard, is a powerful act of support that facilitates emotional release and clears the mind to consider paths forward. To this end, practice listening with the softest part of your ear and an expanding heart, especially when working with someone of a different race. 

As coaches, we have a potent impact on our clients and, often, the systems they live and work in. The good news is, if we are open to new information about the world, willing to believe what our clients tell us, and listen with the softest part of our ear to their life stories, we can we ccontribute to deconstructing racism and support dreams of the most positive possible future for all of humanity. 

Anita Sanchez, Ph.D., Aztec and Mexican-American, applies indigenous wisdom and modern science to guide leaders in creating caring and inclusive teams and organizations. She’s trained tens of thousands of leaders in global corporations and non-profits and is a Board member of Bioneers, the Pachamama Alliance, and member of the Transformational Leadership Council, she is the author of international award-winning The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times, Simon & Schuster.

Anita-Sanchez.com      FourSacredGifts.com       [email protected]

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