From the Toolbox: Listening to Yourself

Core Competency #5: Active Listening
Ability to focus completely on what the client is saying and is not saying, to understand the meaning of what is said in the context of the client’s desires, and to support client self-expression.

When I train coaches, I like them to engage with the question, “How does the client happen to you?” In other words, how does the client impact you, not just as a coach, but as a human being?

As coaches, we are not just charged with actively listening to our clients. We need to be intimately involved in the coaching conversation and immersed in the relationship. As a result, it’s likely that we will be impacted on many levels by the client, by what he is saying and not saying, and by how he is being.

So, while it is true that our attention needs to be on the client, we also need to be aware of our own thoughts, feelings and sensations. This requires listening with more than just our ears and paying attention to all that happens in the field of our relationship. Listening in such a way allows us to notice things which might not be explicit in the client’s speech.

For example, if you arrive to a coaching session feeling happy and open, but notice during the session that you are feeling sad, tense, angry or even achy, it’s worth being at least curious about what might be happening in the conversation or relationship to cause those changes. Of course, you might be “wrong,” but it is important to listen and share your curiosity with your clients—not as the “truth”, but as something that you are experiencing, and that might serve the coaching.

During a recent coaching session, a client was telling me how she had stopped caring and become very cynical about life, and that she wanted to give up her career. She remained impassive and her tone wasn’t changing, but the more she talked, the sadder I felt. Eventually, I admitted that her words had me on the brink of tears. She subsequently softened slightly and began to talk about the pain she had been feeling but didn’t dare to admit to. It was an intense moment between us, and it caused the energy of our conversation to shift.

As I reflected on what had happened, I found myself wondering whose sadness I’d been feeling. Was it hers, or my own? My attention had definitely moved off of her and on to the reactions I was having to her. However, if I had ignored my reactions in the name of remaining “neutral,” then I am not sure that we would have gotten anywhere in our converstaion. My sharing of myself had facilitated an opening in the coachee, a challenge that pushed her to look more deeply into what was happening beneath her impassive surface.

The idea that coaching is all about the relationship isn’t a radical one, but we often tend to focus solely on the coachee as we work to cultivate and augment our coaching skills. It’s worth remembering that we as coaches are in the relationship and are impacted by it. This leaves us with territory ripe for exploration and inquiry. How do we begin to include, and pay attention to, our own sensations, responses and reactions to the client while still staying in the conversation with him or her?

I’d like to leave you with the following question: How might we be holding ourselves back from truly connecting with our clients by not connecting with ourselves?