The Role of Expertise in Life and Relationship Coaching
What does the word “Coach” mean to you?
More importantly, what do you think it means to others?
To the average person, when you say “I’m a Coach” they might translate that to:
See the problem? In my opinion, none of the above is anywhere near an accurate description of Professional Coaching as applied to Life and Relationships.
Unless you know and understand the methodology of Professional Coaching as its evolved in the past 20 years, it’s almost guaranteed that whenever you use the word “Coach” you will not be on the same page as the person on the other side of that conversation.
It gets even worse when new coaches try to explain coaching by saying “Coaches don’t give advice” and “You have the answers inside you,” which, understandably, would cause most people to wonder “Really? Then why would I want to hire you!!??”
The word “Coach” is common in the English language and it’s unfortunate that the early pioneers of the coaching profession chose a label that causes so much confusion about what Professional Coaching is, especially personal, life, and relationship coaching. But here we are, and those of us passionate about this unique and powerful helping methodology have to adapt to the world’s confusion and preconceived notions about what we do.
Empowerment Coaching
While all coaches value empowering their clients, Empowerment Coaching truly assumes the client is functional and capable of success as they are (without needing to be "fixed") unless proven otherwise. Empowerment Coaching seeks to support the client to use their own inner guidance system to make good choices in alignment with their desired results and supports their problem solving skills to overcome internal obstacles.
If you think about it, nothing works for everybody and there are always many ways to accomplish something and many choices to make, and people usually know what they are what they "should" do, they just have a lot of challenges overcoming their fears and inertia to leave their comfort zone and take the risks necessary to be successful. They don't need your expertise as much as they need your inspiration and empowerment.
This is contrary to the expectations about what coaching is about from most potential clients and those who want to enter the coaching profession, who, understandably, assume that the role of the coach is one or more of the statements above.
You are NOT empowering your client if:
???1???You think your client has limiting beliefs that must be changed before being successful...
???2???You believe your client is going in the wrong direction and making the wrong choice...
???3???You believe your client needs to heed your advice...
???4???You believe your client needs your perspective or opinion to be successful...
???5???You think your client needs to agree with a particular point of view (dogma)...
???6???You think your client has a personality disorder, low self esteem, low self confidence, anxiety, depression or some other internal obstacle to success that must be addressed to be successful (if true, they need a referral to a higher level of intervention, not a coach).
Here's the reality- you can't empower somebody and also:
Doing any of the above is taking the role of directive expert and results in the client accepting (or resisting) the role of needing to follow your advice and directions. This is appropriate for many helping professions, such as doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc, but NOT when it concerns someone's most important life and relationship goals and choices.
A life or relationship coach MUST use the Empowerment model of helping their clients because they need to take responsibility for their choices and outcomes, they need to stretch outside of their comfort zone, take emotional risks, and get into action, and telling someone what they "should" do promotes dependency and does not facilitate empowerment at all. To the contrary, since most clients assume the coach is an expert and knows more than they do, that they should follow their directions, and they dis-empower themselves even if you don't intend for them to do so. It only takes one direct suggestion to undo months of empowerment coaching and cause your client to view you as their expert guru and want you to tell them what they should do.
More about Empowerment Coaching here
There are many models and specialties of professional coaching and I can only address Life and Relationship Coaching. What works for Executive Coaching or Wellness Coaching, etc., will not and can not work for Life and Relationship Coaching.
The Role of Expertise in Life and Relationship Coaching
At this point you may be wondering "If I can't teach, tell, explain, advise, suggest, provide an opinion or even use the word "I" with my clients, then how can I help them, how do I use all my knowledge and expertise in my specialty to help my clients!!??"
A very good and understandable question.
To be a good relationship coach requires deep understanding about relationships and you do need to be an expert in the area of your specialty, but you use your expertise to empower your clients instead of telling them what you think they should do.
Here's three primary tools for using your expertise to coach and empower your life and relationship coaching clients:
Your Coaching Superpower is your most important coaching skill, defined very simply as the next question you choose to ask in the moment with your client to focus their attention and move them forward. In any moment you have a huge number of choices of what to say or do, what coaching question to ask, and in each moment with your client you can apply all of your knowledge, skill and intuition to ask the best question that occurs to you that will help them move forward.
Simple, but not easy, which is why there is no substitute for practice and experience. After a year or so, most of our trainees become comfortable using their Coaching Superpower to empower their clients and it feels easy and natural to do so.
This is quite a contrast from being the directive expert and taking responsibility for your client's results, which is an impossible burden as you are helpless because they are in control of their choices in their life and there is nothing you can tell them to change that.
The Bottom Line: What coaching is and how to do it has many forms and nuances. For Life and Relationship Coaching to be successful the client must take responsibility for their choices and outcomes, which requires empowerment, and taking the role of directive expert will dis-empower them, simple as that.
This is one of the hardest things for new trainees to grasp, and when they do, they are often disappointed as many seek to become a coach because they love giving advice, only to find out when they start their training that they are prohibited from doing so! This requires an adjustment that most are able to make, but some are not willing or able to do so and are best served being a teacher, consultant, therapist, or other helping profession. And a few, unfortunately, are so dogmatic and ego driven they should not be in a helping profession of any kind and wash out of the coaching profession pretty quickly.
Coaching as a profession has a lot of nuances, and the need to empower our clients and how to do so is one of the most important.
A Thank You bonus for reading this far: Want to test your knowledge of Professional Coaching? Take this enlightening 10-question Coaching Skills Critical Thinking Quiz (answers provided)!