How exactly does coaching work?
Often I get calls from prospective clients who want a coach, but aren’t sure what coaching is, or how coaches can help a leader grow and work towards goals. Coaches are often confused with mentors and sometimes regarded as business advisors. While a professional coach may occasionally provide guidance or advice, the coach’s primary role is to help the client develop greater self-awareness. Self-awareness is essential for personal growth, problem-solving, and achieving meaningful goals, and the process of evoking awareness involves helping the client gain insights into their thoughts, behaviors, emotions, beliefs, and external circumstances. This awareness is a cornerstone of effective coaching, as it allows clients to make informed choices, shift perspectives, and ultimately take more intentional action.
Below are several key strategies and frameworks that coaches use to evoke awareness in their clients, with supporting citations from coaching and psychological research.
1. Powerful, Open-Ended Questions
Why it works: Asking thought-provoking, open-ended questions is one of the most effective ways to prompt reflection and uncover deeper insights. These questions invite clients to examine their beliefs, behaviors, and assumptions, thereby raising their awareness of how they think and act.
Research: According to Whitmore (2017), asking open-ended questions is a critical component in enhancing self-awareness and goal achievement. These questions help the client consider perspectives they might not have previously explored.
Example Questions:
"What’s most important to you right now?"
"How do you typically respond in this situation?"
"What assumptions are you making about this situation?"
"What would happen if you approached this differently?"
Citation:
Whitmore, J. (2017). Coaching for Performance: The Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
2. Active Listening and Reflective Feedback
Why it works: Active listening involves the coach fully concentrating, understanding, responding, and remembering what the client says. By reflecting back what the client has said, the coach helps the client see their own thoughts and feelings from a different perspective.
Research: The concept of reflective listening is grounded in Carl Rogers' person-centered therapy, which emphasizes empathy and understanding. In coaching, reflecting statements or emotions back to the client allows them to hear their own words and gain insights into their underlying assumptions and feelings (Rogers, 1961).
Example:
Client: "I always feel overwhelmed when I have too many tasks to manage."
Coach: "It sounds like the pressure of having many tasks at once leaves you feeling overwhelmed. Can we explore what triggers that feeling?"
Purpose: This reflective feedback encourages the client to think more deeply about their emotions and how they relate to the situation.
Citation:
Rogers, C. (1961). On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin.
3. Use of Metaphors and Analogies
Why it works: Metaphors and analogies can help clients view their challenges and experiences from a new and often more creative perspective. These tools allow clients to step outside their immediate concerns and see their situation from a broader, more reflective viewpoint.
Research: Studies show that metaphors activate different areas of the brain, potentially leading to new cognitive insights and perspectives (Stern, 2004). They are effective for bringing unconscious thoughts or feelings into consciousness.
Example:
Coach: "If your current situation were a storm, what would the calmest point of that storm look like? What would it feel like?"
Purpose: This question helps the client see their current challenges as something more manageable and offers an opportunity to reframe their situation.
Citation:
Stern, D. N. (2004). The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life. W.W. Norton & Company.
4. Encouraging Self-Reflection and Journaling
Why it works: Self-reflection allows clients to slow down and process their experiences in a structured way. Journaling provides a space for clients to track their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors over time, making it easier to identify patterns and gain insights into their inner world.
Research: According to Pennebaker (1997), expressive writing (or journaling) can significantly enhance self-awareness and emotional processing by helping individuals organize and understand their thoughts and feelings.
Example:
Coach: "What has been on your mind most often this week? How do you think these thoughts are influencing your decisions?"
Purpose: Journaling gives the client time to reflect, and the act of writing often leads to greater clarity and insight into their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.
Citation:
Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychological Science, 8(3), 162-166.
5. Mindfulness and Body Awareness
Why it works: Mindfulness practices help clients become more aware of their present thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations. This heightened awareness enables clients to observe their reactions without judgment, leading to greater self-awareness and emotional regulation.
Research: Mindfulness-based approaches have been found to enhance self-awareness, particularly in terms of recognizing emotions and physical sensations in response to various stimuli (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). Coaching that incorporates mindfulness practices can help clients develop greater emotional intelligence and more adaptive responses to stress.
Example:
Coach: "Can you take a moment to pause and focus on what you’re feeling in your body right now as you reflect on this issue? What sensations do you notice?"
Purpose: Body awareness and mindfulness practices allow the client to connect more deeply with their internal state, making it easier to understand how emotions influence thoughts and decisions.
Citation:
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. Delta.
6. Exploring Beliefs and Assumptions
Why it works: Often, clients are unaware of the limiting beliefs and assumptions that guide their behaviors. By helping clients uncover these beliefs and challenge them, coaches can promote greater awareness and foster shifts in mindset that support growth.
Research: In cognitive coaching, questioning underlying beliefs and assumptions is a powerful tool to evoke awareness. According to Beck (1976), people’s thoughts are heavily influenced by their core beliefs, which can either empower or constrain them. By exploring and reframing these beliefs, coaches can facilitate new, more adaptive ways of thinking.
Example:
Coach: "What beliefs do you hold about yourself in this situation? How might those beliefs be affecting the way you approach your goal?"
Purpose: This question helps the client become aware of how their beliefs might be limiting their potential or influencing their decision-making process.
Citation:
Beck, A. T. (1976). Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. International Universities Press.
7. Providing a Safe and Trusting Environment
Why it works: A key aspect of evoking awareness is creating a space where clients feel safe enough to explore sensitive issues. A trusting, non-judgmental relationship allows clients to be more open to examining their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Research: A psychologically safe relationship with the coach is essential for evoking awareness. Rogers (1961) emphasized that the conditions of empathy, positive regard, and genuineness create an environment where clients feel safe to explore and reflect.
Example:
Coach: "There’s no right or wrong answer here, just a space for you to think about what you truly want. What comes up for you when you think about your goal?"
Purpose: This statement reinforces a safe space for the client to explore without fear of judgment or failure, fostering deeper self-awareness.
Citation:
Rogers, C. (1961). On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin.
Conclusion
Evoking awareness in coaching is a dynamic and multi-faceted process that involves deep listening, asking insightful questions, providing reflective feedback, encouraging self-reflection, and creating a trusting environment. By utilizing these strategies, a coach can help the client uncover new insights about their behavior, beliefs, and thought patterns, ultimately leading to more informed decisions and meaningful change.
Key Citations:
Whitmore, J. (2017). Coaching for Performance: The Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
Rogers, C. (1961). On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin.
Stern, D. N. (2004). The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life. W.W. Norton & Company.
Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychological Science, 8(3), 162-166.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. Delta.
Beck, A. T. (1976). Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. International Universities Press.