In the second in their series on shifting from continuing professional development (CPD) to continuing personal and professional development (CPPD), Dr Julia Carden and Dr Elizabeth Crosse explore the personal element of development.

Part 2: the shift to CPPD

 

 As is ever the case, our thinking is continually evolving, and you might notice if you read part one that we have now put the ‘personal’ element of our development as the first port of call before professional. This is because on reflection, we’ve realised, based on our research and own experiences, that it’s been the personal work that we’ve undertaken which has had the most significant impact on how we show up as coaches. In this article, we turn our focus to that ‘personal’ element of development and explore how and where to start.

Therefore, where do we begin?  We’d like to offer that the first stage is to establish a mindset that a) buys in to the need for personal development and is motivated to do this work; and b) becomes curious as to what might need developing and then through this curiosity start self-questioning. 

This mindset of self-questioning is important because, as Nancy Kline notes, “we think better in the presence of a question” (Kline, 2009). 

You may be thinking, as highlighted to us by a recent webinar participant, if coaching is client-led why is this work on self really needed? Our research, in line with the work of Laske (1999), indicated that we can only take our clients as deep as we’ve taken ourselves. Controversially, Laske’s work suggests that we can only work with clients at the level to which we’ve developed ourselves, and it would be ineffectual for us to work with clients who’ve reached a deeper level of developmental maturity. To offer our perspective we firmly believe that it’s only when we’ve done this deep work on ourselves that we can truly sit with uncertainty without any drive to ‘solve’ the problem or reach a solution, a concept identified by the poet, John Keats called “negative capability”. We say this because our research found that a coach can only accomplish meaningful and impactful client connection when they’ve first attained self-connection, and part of that self-connection is self-acceptance. This self-connection enables us to sit with negative capability because our self-worth becomes detached from coaching outcomes, solutions, helping and reaching an answer. It’s a challenging place to be as we can feel we’re not adding value, and this is why the deep work on self (ie, the personal development) is needed.

In terms of identifying the ‘what’ for the ‘personal development’, a useful starting point is to put ourselves under the microscope and contemplate our self-awareness. It’s impossible to fully achieve full self-awareness because it’s a dynamic construct which ebbs and flows, and getting to grips with one’s unconscious is a never-ending process. However, an appropriate starting point is to get clear on what self-awareness is. With that in mind, it can be summarised as: “a range of interpersonal (the perception of others and individual behaviours) and intrapersonal components (beliefs, values, strengths, weaknesses, motivations, internal mental state and physiological responses) in order to develop self and client connection, which enables coaching conversations with insight and change.” 

These components are shown in Figure 1. The components of self-awareness provide us with a framework which we can use as a point of reflection to identify areas and generate questions for our development, noting that reflection around one component is probably linked to another. Each of the components will be discussed in the following.

Figure 1: Self-awareness components (Carden et al, 2022)

 

The interpersonal components, ie, those that can be observed by others, are highlighted as a priority because we’re doing this work in service of our coaching practice rather than a narcissistic self-indulgence. These are also the most challenging elements to get a grip of because we require the feedback and input of others, and receiving this can, at times, be unpalatable and not what we wish to hear. This results in us engaging in ‘storytelling’ and ‘justifying’. With that in mind notice when you’re pushing aside, justifying, rationalising and disagreeing with input from these areas – as one of Julia’s wise supervisors once commented, “the stuff we don’t want to hear, is probably the stuff we need to pay attention to.  

Turning to each of the components in turn:

 

The interpersonal components

• Perception of others:  How others are experiencing us to gain an external awareness of how we’re perceived. Naturally, others’ perceptions are based on their own filters, which we could use as an excuse not to pay attention to this. Nevertheless, gaining a sense of how we’re perceived by others can help us gain other perspectives, because when we look in the mirror, we see what we wish to see.  

 

• Behaviours:  These are the actions others see and hear us doing. We can see this by watching recordings.  The next level of thinking on this is to reflect on why we behave in the way we’re with different people and in various contexts. Our behaviours can be generated from values, beliefs, internal mental state, physiological responses, or all of those. This demonstrates why these components cannot be considered in isolation and there’s helpful reflection to be done in identifying links. In terms of exploring behaviours, we can seek feedback for how others experience us in terms of what they see, hear, and feel when they’re with us. Another vehicle might be by watching and listening to a recording of ourselves – even better if we do this with a thinking partner that can challenge any storytelling and/or justification.

 

The intrapersonal components

• Beliefs and values:  BELIEFS tend to be deeply personal which are often generalizations. They can of course be helpful and limiting in nature and they’ve often been formed in our early years and can be part of our history/heritage. Doing work around our context, our history and what has shaped us (Aquilina, 2021) or childhood story work (Hill, 2023) can be a supportive process in identifying these beliefs. 

VALUES refer to those things we attach importance to, which inform our decisions, choices, and actions. We can work with a coach, supervisor, or a therapist to support us in identifying values and beliefs. Equally, we can ask ourselves ‘what’s at stake’ or ‘what’s important to us’ in high stake situations and this can provide insight. Understanding values and beliefs can provide a basis through which we can understand our motivations and behaviours.  

• Strengths and weaknesses:  What do you perceive as your strengths and weaknesses. A psychometric personality measure and/or strengths finder can be useful tools in this space to support us in identifying these.  Personality traits fall within this component.
• Motivations:  Like other thinkers in the coaching space, we agree with the concept that as coaches, we all do this work to meet an unmet need in ourselves. With that in mind, working with a coach, supervisor or therapist to identify that unmet need provides a starting point. Therefore, it can also be supportive to think about what our needs and motivations are (at home and at work), and where these stem from (they might be linked to self-worth, values and beliefs, personal history or current situation).
• Internal mental state: This is about understanding our feelings, emotions, and cognitions – these have been linked together (Carden et al, 2022) and can be unpicked through reflective practice (alone or with another).
• Physiological responses:  In the current online and uncertain environment, it can be far easier to stay in the cognitive space and forget what’s going on in our body. However, identifying how our body is responding in any one given situation or context can give us a new level of awareness. Working with a somatic coach/coaching supervisor, along with other activities that connect us with the body, eg, mindfulness body scans, yoga and pilates enable us to gain insight in this space.

Moving to the ‘how’ in terms of personal development, it’s a very individual decision, and our research highlighted that one needs to engage in a variety of methods and approaches, combining activities to gain maximum benefit, for example, therapy, walking and coaching supervision. However, what’s important is to do these activities with purpose having first identified what components or outputs (eg, self-acceptance) of self-awareness you wish to develop. Figure 2 illustrates that a variety of activities support the development of self-awareness.

Figure 2: Developing self-awareness (Carden et al, 2022)

 

There are of course other methods which might be added to this diagram, eg, a silent retreat, a lifetime adventure, a life event, in addition to those we have already mentioned. We wish to emphasise that this isn’t a one-stop activity but needs to be continuous, as we constantly move between self-connection and client-connection with client work continually highlighting the additional personal development we need to pay attention to. 

Figure 3 attempts to highlight the ongoing dynamic nature of this work.

Figure 3: The continuous process of personal development (Carden et al, 2022)

 

In thinking about your continuing personal development journey, you may wish to consider:

• Which of the self-awareness components would benefit from attention to support self-connection?
• What would support you in developing self-acceptance?
• What does your mind, body, and soul need?
• How might adventures and life experiences support/add to this development?
• What non-professional activities (eg, learning a foreign language or cooking or fitness) support you in becoming the person you most want to be or support you in finding self-compassion?

In the final article in this series, we’ll focus on taking a strategic approach to addressing CPPD. We’ll explore the differences between learning and development and what you need to consider to create a CPPD that reflects the diverse, dynamic, and contextual nature of your developmental needs.  

 

About the authors

• Dr Julia Carden runs a coaching and coaching supervision practice. She is also a visiting tutor at Henley Business School, teaching on the Coaching Certificate, Professional Certificate in Coaching Supervision and MSc in Coaching for Behavioural Change. Her PhD research focused on the role of self-awareness in the development of the coach. julia@carden-consulting.co.uk
• Dr Elizabeth Crosse, MCC, is an experienced coach, mentor and supervisor. Her thinking on the continuous development of coaches has evolved from more than 30 years’ in the coaching profession and her doctoral research, which focused on how coaches develop expertise. elizabeth@eacrosse.co.uk

 

 

References

• Aquilina, E. (2021). Embodying Authenticity: A Somatic Path to Transforming Self, Team and Organisation. Troubador Publishing Ltd.
• Carden, J., Jones, R. J., & Passmore, J. (2022). Defining self-awareness in the context of adult development: A systematic literature review. Journal of Management Education, 46(1), 140-177.
• Carden, J., Passmore, J. and Jones, R. J. (2022). Exploring the role of self-awareness in coach development: A grounded theory study. International Journal of Training and Development, 26(2), pp.343-363.
• Carden, J., Jones, R. J., & Passmore, J. (2023). An exploration of the role of coach training in developing self-awareness: a mixed methods study. Current Psychology, 42(8), 6164-6178.
• Hill, S. (2023, 2nd ed.). Where did you learn to behave like that? Dialogix Ltd.
• Kline, N. (2009). More Time to Think. Fisher King Publishing.
• Laske, O. (1999) ‘An Integrated Model of Developmental Coaching’. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 51(3), 139-159.