Uh-Oh, Your Ego is Showing
How do you keep your ego in check during coaching sessions?
No one can be so neutral, eh? How do you not rush-think-ahead and automatically devise what’s best for your client, even as your client is still talking in earnest about their goals and challenges? Your ego wants to be a great coach. Your ego wants to have all the right answers for your client. But does your ego have it’s own agenda?
The article I was reading from a management and training blog says “the first thing for us to do as coaches is to recognise that we have one (an ego), and to guard against letting it get in the way of our objectivity, focus of attention, or support for our coaching subject.”
The article cautions coaches to be alert and know that your ego is showing if:
- You find yourself telling anecdotes from your experience, which have little or no relevance, let alone benefit for the coachee and their agenda or circumstances.
- You find that you are drifting off mentally (yawn…….. oops sorry) and thinking our own thoughts, rather than focusing on the coachee’s issues and environment.
- You find yourself judging the person, wondering how they could possibly have gotten themselves into such a situation, and why on earth they cannot just do the simple thing (that you would do!) to solve their problem or resolve their situation.
Tips for coaching ego-free, anyone?
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Comment by Leonardo Ravier on 24 April 2008:
I know that this is not a “tip”, but the answer is: LOVE.
Love your client, and your ego disappears.
Comment by Pascale Cotton on 24 April 2008:
I noticed that my ego tends to show a lot if I am working with a client that is not a good fit for me - in particular the kind of client that considers me as the magic wand that will bring results without any efforts or actions on their part. With clients that are a good fit, on the other hand, I admire my clients a lot - their actions, their creativity, their ideas, etc. and my ego doesn’t play a role there. Therefore, I think that the key is to grant yourself the luxury to work only with those clients that are a perfect fit.
Comment by Ronnie Dunetz on 25 April 2008:
Wow! I could not agree more with the part about the ego! Yes, I feel every time I am successful in helping a client with an insight, an action, a success, there goes my ego up the scale…and yet, could it be otherwise? What is it about our profession that so focuses on helping and yet needs to have the results to show there was indeed help that occurred for the benefit of the client- do we need it for self-satisfaction, justification and/or marketing???…
And here is another related thing that often comes up in my mind. I believe, by virtue of our schooling and work\life experience, we have all long-since bought into the model that past performance is a great indicator of future success. I believe this is part of what we call “learning”. On the other hand, if we have lots of successes in our “past”, does it not color our ability to come with a “beginner’s mind”, a clean judgement-less slate, deep listening for our client? And since our successes obviously impact our confidence levels and skill level, don’t they also lead right to the “ego-build up” thing? I agree it is a danger that is very subtle, often hiding out beneath and beyond our thoughts or verbal expressions…
Thanks for the thoughts on this!
Ronnie Dunetz
Israel
Comment by jsibley on 26 April 2008:
I think a key factor for anyone in a helping profession is to have a good understanding of why we are doing this work. While there may be an element of altruism (”I do it to help others”) there are often other factors that can be less conscious.
Part of us might like to feel like an expert. Part of us may feel more important when we help others succeed. Part of us may want the social interactions with our clients. And this is just a start.
This is all human nature, but once we recognize it, we can examine whether it is helpful to our clients to have these needs met in the coaching interaction, or whether we need to find other ways to meet these needs.
Also, I think self-care is key. I think the risk of our ego hijacking us is often highest when we’ve been neglecting ourselves and our needs.
Jonathan
Comment by Sylvie Carter on 28 April 2008:
Hi,
Hear what you are saying and I think my belief is that good to great coaching comes from the coach ‘letting go’ of the client’s outcomes, that is stepping back from judgment, from your own beliefs and values. When you can ‘hold this space for the client’ you start to feel in the flow and you can bet you are certainly empowering the client to drive the agenda, their agenda not yours.
But thanks for the short article - worth keeping in front of mind!