Michael Korda states Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility… In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have… is the ability to take on responsibility.
Being a great coach is taking responsibility for ourselves but also encouraging our clients to take responsibility for what they want to achieve. Coaches don’t have superhuman capabilities and definitely don’t have the answers to their clients’ dilemmas, but great coaches do have real power through their abilities to support people – and with it, the responsibility – to guide people in the direction of their success. This is True power can be tapped into to support REAL individuals in real life. When we as coaches employ this power responsibly we can support individuals create positive, sustained change in their lives.
Consequently, along with this power to coach our clients towards realising their personal and/or business objectives and becoming more as human beings, comes responsibility. Great coaches assume them all as part of the professional responsibility. This includes everything from listening with intent, building trust, working with the clients’ agenda and keeping our own agenda out of the process, giving feedback when needed, believing in our clients’ potential, having faith in our clients to find their own solutions and keeping them responsible, helping them to celebrate every little win and always being present for them.
There are a few things we could do in order to become more responsible coaches.
How to develop the more Responsible “You” in Yourself and your Clients
#1 – Develop your self-awareness.
Discover and know your personal abilities and failings to be able to view your own conduct objectively and understand exactly what you value. Acknowledge your flaws, ask for feedback, and make changes when necessary. The more self-aware you become of all your characteristics, the more grounded you will become. As you become more grounded you will trust your own pure intuition more and so you will become more efficient as a coach.
Dr. Gerard Bell, business consultant and professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, advises us on how to develop our self-knowledge. He said, “Study yourself closely and practice self-assessment techniques to learn how you behave, and the effects you have on others. Ask others for their option, feedback, and suggestions to become a better coach.”
The wisdom is straightforward: the more we grow ourselves, the more we can offer, and the more we are able to support others.
“Work harder on yourself than you do on your business.” Jim Rohn
#2: Separate Your Responsibility from your clients’ Responsibility
Whenever we hear the word “responsibility”, we quite often think that this should rest completely upon our shoulders. Within a coaching partnership this could not be further from the truth. As coaches we certainly have a responsibility to our clients’ for being genuine, to have their best interests at heart and to enable them to achieve their desired goals on their own terms and the greatest gift we could give is to allow them to take responsibility for their own choices, their own journey as well as their own outcomes.
Carrying the responsibility of coaching shouldn’t intimidate you. Being able to enable other people is exactly what coaching is all about. Accept the responsibilities that come with it and release the responsibilities that aren’t yours to take.
Absolutely nothing is accomplished by worrying about whether your clients realize their goals or not. Focus on supporting and inspiring them. Be their cheerleader in their development and on their journey. Brainstorm together when it is required, be their champion, pick them up when they fall. But ultimately, it is their own responsibility to assume responsibility for realizing their desired goals. You merely help them observe and achieve this state.
#3: Take Calculated Risks and Learn from Your Mistakes
Albert Einstein said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. “ Doing things differently can be be extremely challenging and we need to motivate our clients to consider the potential risks even if they might fail. A willingness to risk failure is a core characteristic of all successful individuals. As coaches we need to go ahead and take risks too and ask the hard questions.
Also, guide them to a more rewarding paradigm regarding failure. What’s failure besides great feedback that our ongoing strategy isn’t the correct path? Make use of this information for course correction. Failure doesn’t happen until we throw in the towel.{If} we don’t throw in the towel, then failure isn’t an option.
#4: Own and acknowledge our mistakes
We live in a society where mistakes aren’t tolerated; this is a big shame because the greatest lessons and growth come through our mistakes and failures. Everyone makes mistakes and makes the wrong choices from time to time; it’s part of life. As coaches we make mistakes too and that’s Okay provided that we learn from them and never make the identical mistake twice. A trainer on a coaching course I attended “gave” us each a “mistake bank account” with a credit of 5000 mistakes and what he said was make use of this account and make the mistakes, just don’t make the same one a second time. What an amazing gift he gave us and what an amazing gift we can give our clients when we enable them to understand this, help them to draw the necessary lessons and take corrective action from these mistakes, instead of allowing them to beat themselves up.
Not only does owning our mistakes and failures allow us to to be more truthful and powerful in our own lives. Owning and assuming responsibility for them lets others see the integrity as well as virtue within us, and hence further gain their respect.
