How do leaders who coach work with feelings in the coaching space, asks Lynn Scott, in her latest column
Part of your role as a ‘leader coach’ is to help those you coach to make decisions, set and achieve goals and navigate change.
You help them tap into their wisdom and recognise any stories they tell themselves that might not be true or helpful.
But what would you say if I asked you how you work with their feelings?
Do you freeze and think, ‘Well, there’s nothing about feelings in the GROW model?’
Do you panic and think anything ‘feelings related’ may sit more comfortably in the counselling or therapeutic space – so not going there?
Or do you say, ‘Of course I work with feelings, Lynn’?
Your confidence and skill in this area will depend on your coach training, experience and other self-development work.
Much will depend on your comfort, discomfort or familiarity with your own emotional landscape and your beliefs about feelings in the workplace.
When I first trained as a coach in 2000, I had no clue how to understand my emotional triggers or patterns or how to express my feelings – my learned behaviour was to suppress them.
What an awakening it was! And it wasn’t always comfortable. In fact, at times, it was very uncomfortable indeed. Those suppressed feelings would pop out everywhere like a Champagne cork at the most inappropriate times (or so it felt to me.) Suppressing emotions strengthens them, so it’s not always a helpful long-term strategy.
In any coaching conversation, there are your feelings, their feelings and our feelings about feelings! That’s a lot of feelings.
When our brains are tired, it’s hard to regulate our emotions, and there are many tired people in organisations right now.
So, trying to skirt around feelings or ignore them in a desire to ‘be useful’ and get to ‘an action’ at the end of the coaching conversation denies us both an opportunity to learn and grow.
Let me give you a couple of examples.
Sue says her workload is too big and she feels overwhelmed.
Do you immediately look for ways to help her manage her time, say no to her boss, or ask her what ‘overwhelmed’ means to her? All of these have their place, but without understanding what ‘overwhelm’ means for Sue, you’re making some assumptions and may not get to the heart of the real issue. It’s tempting to go into solution mode because you want to fix things (what feelings are you noticing as you do that?), but is that what Sue truly wants? It may be that space to think out loud, to vent, to say what’s on her mind might be a better starting point. Never underestimate the power of simply being heard. A simple ‘say more about your overwhelm’ leaves the door open for the conversation to go where it needs to go. Of course, if Sue comes to every session with an extreme outpouring of emotion and you feel unequipped to work in that space, that’s the time that another intervention may be more valuable for her. (Take this to your supervision.)
Jay recently approached me for some coaching on his next job move. He was torn between finding a new role where he could earn more money (there was no pay rise available in his current role – he’d asked) and staying in the job he loved on his current salary. He said his partner’s business was struggling, and they ‘needed the cash’. He came to the coaching session saying he wanted to make a decision.
When I dug a bit, it was clear Jay was full of resentment and anger. His partner was ‘pushing him’ to get a higher-paying job, he said, and he was digging his heels in. Giving voice to those feelings, Jay realised that he needed to sit down with his partner and have an honest conversation before any decision could be made.
I believe it’s important to give the people we coach an opportunity to become familiar with and curious about their feelings because feelings are everywhere and feelings are data. Feelings influence our thoughts and vice versa and both affect our actions, behaviour and decisions.
Look at these two examples:
‘I feel anxious, I’m no good, I’ll say no’, versus ‘I feel anxious, I want to learn, I’ll start small’.
The same feeling, different thoughts and different actions.
We can help the people we coach understand that they have a choice in how they respond to their feelings. But to do that, they must recognise the feelings first. Sometimes, they can name it – ‘I’m so angry’ – and sometimes, it’s a physical feeling – a tight chest or a punch in the gut, for example.
Once they can recognise and name the feeling, they can choose to respond rather than ‘react and regret’ or they can choose to mindfully say something rather than saying nothing and then wishing they’d spoken up. They can do some breathing to manage their state, or they can ask a question or ask for a time out. They can take some time to move around. Changing our physiological state can often change our emotional state.
To help get familiar with feelings, there are four questions I work with personally and I share with my coaching clients too:
- What am I feeling? (You might add, ‘Where am I feeling it?’)
- Why am I feeling it?
- What would I like to feel instead?
- What will help me generate that new feeling?
Another thing you may notice is that the person you coach constantly blames others for their feelings, for example, ‘Sean always gets my back up.’ This is an opportunity to help the person you coach to focus on what they can influence and change rather than you both trying to figure out a way to ‘fix’ Sean.
You can only coach the person in the room with you.
- Lynn Scott is an ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC), director of Lynn Scott Coaching and founder of The Effortless Leader Revolution. She’s a leadership and team coach, coach supervisor and ICF Coach Mentor.
- www.lynnscottcoaching.co.uk
- You can join her free Facebook group for leaders and managers, The Effortless Leader Revolution, for more leadership tips and resources that work in the real world.
- www.facebook.com/groups/effortlessleaders