How important is autonomy in coaching?

This article is a reprint of a?Coaching Research in Practice, 2018: July.

Client needs are implicit within the coaching process. Their needs usually provide the trigger for them to seek coaching in the first place, and coaches start the process by attempting to gain an understanding of each client’s needs in order to agree on goals, targets or desired outcomes for the coaching. However, there is one need that appears to trump all other needs.

This issue of Coaching Research in Practice reviews three studies of the autonomy need in coaching. It explains the three major types of needs and, in particular, explores the autonomy need, its fulfilment in coaching and its relationship to empathy. It closes with some suggestions for practice, including example behaviours that will support your clients’ autonomy.

COACHING RESEARCH

In their 2018 paper “Striving for autonomy: The importance of the autonomy need and its support within coaching,” Schiemann, Mühlberger and Jonas begin by providing a valuable overview of needs. They explain that “a need can be seen as an innate requirement that is essential for every human being … [and that] a need defines our motivation, which in turn shapes our cognition and therefore behaviour … set[ting] the basis for our motivations, intentions, and actions” (p. 99). Needs can be physiological e.g. eating, drinking, sleeping, and they can be psychological e.g. autonomy, i.e. “the need to feel self-determined, self-congruent, and value-congruent” (p. 99); competence, i.e. “the need to master challenges, learn new things, and be effective” (p. 99); relatedness, i.e. “the need to feel secure, intimate, and related” (p. 100). Schiemann et al. go on to explain that “in coaching the autonomy need … seems to be relatively more important than the competence need … and the relatedness need” (p. 101).

Their paper then reports on a set of three studies. The first study compared which needs are addressed in coaching, training and supervision. They found that from a group of 95 possible clients, these clients expected that coaching best fulfilled the autonomy need and that “people with a high need for autonomy also expected the coaching to fulfil both the autonomy and the competence need” (p. 103). In contrast, “training mostly addressed the need for competence and, to a lesser degree, the autonomy and relatedness need [and] supervision mostly addressed the relatedness need and, to a lesser degree, the competence need; the autonomy need was the least important need” (p. 103).

Schiemann et al.’s second study explored the autonomy need and its fulfilment within the coaching interaction. This study assessed the autonomy, competence and relatedness needs of 112 real-life client coaching sessions. “The results showed that the fulfilment of all three needs leads to satisfaction with the coaching … However, the clients with a high autonomy need were more satisfied, as their autonomy need was fulfilled through coaching” (p. 104).

Finally, Schiemann et al.’s third study evaluated empathy as an autonomy need support. “Being autonomy need supportive means to support people to reflect about themselves and about their self-valued goals, to be understanding, and to let the person share ideas and make choices” (p. 102). In particular, “being autonomy supportive also means to emphasise and take the other’s perspective” (p. 102) i.e. showing empathy through a “deep understanding and engagement” (p. 102) with whatever clients present. In this third study, 95 coaches completed a questionnaire that asked about the three needs. “Again the client’s autonomy need [was] perceived as most important” (p. 105). They were also asked about their autonomy need support and “the coaches indicated that the higher they perceived the client’s autonomy need and the client’s competence need, the more autonomy need supportive behavior they wanted to show” (p. 106). Finally, coaches were asked how important empathy was to the coaching they offered, and results indicated that showing empathy was essential and that “the more coaches indicated to support their clients in their autonomy need, the more they indicated that they tried to show empathy” (p. 106). Thus, “coaches indicated that autonomy is what clients need and that supporting clients in their autonomy is crucial. Moreover, the more autonomy supportive the coaches, the more empathy they showed” (p. 106).

IN PRACTICE

Clearly, “the autonomy need is most important in coaching” (p. 107) and the findings of Schiemann et al.’s three studies, hold several points for practice:

1. “Coaches should fulfil all three needs to make clients satisfied with their coaching: Coaches should be friendly and show appreciation, which fulfils the relatedness need; they should address the client’s competences, which fulfils the competence need; and they should let the client be self-determined, which fulfils the autonomy need” (p. 105).
2. If your client has a high need for competency or relatedness, be aware that coaching will not fulfil these needs as well as training and supervision respectively. Not only does this suggest the value of intake questions designed to identify whether your client has a greater autonomy, competency or relatedness need, but it also suggests that in cases where clients have higher competency and relatedness needs, you may consider whether a referral to training or supervision might be in the best interests of your client.
3. Consider how much of a need for autonomy and competence you perceive your clients to have, as this may have a direct impact on the degree to which you provide support for your clients’ need for autonomy. This also suggests that the more autonomy need you have, the more autonomy need supportive behaviour you will show, regardless of your clients’ needs! Behaviour which may support your clients’ need for autonomy include:

• providing clients with choices and options
• asking self-reflection questions
• exploring clients’ inner wishes, goals, strengths and resources
• responding to clients empathetically so that they feel understood and supported (p.107)

By taking into account practices like those suggested above, you are more likely to attend to your clients’ needs more effectively, and thereby have more satisfied clients.

Reference:

Schiemann, S., Mühlberger, C., & Jonas, E. (2018). Striving for autonomy: The importance of the autonomy need and its support within coaching.?International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and MentoringSpecial Issue 12, 98-110.

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Translating coaching research into coaching practice,

Kerryn Griffiths (PhD –?The Process of Learning in Coaching)

Global ReciproCoach Coordinator