Competency 5. Maintains Presence

Competency 5. Maintains Presence

Introduction

With this competency, we continue to look at how the coach co-creates the relationship with their client and in this case the focus is on the extent to which the coach is present to and curious about what the client is saying and who the client is. The skill and quality of this partnering is also significant in terms of how and how much the coach actively seeks input from the client around the content and direction of the conversation as opposed to offering content and direction themselves.

Competency 5 -Maintaining Presence

Definition: Is fully conscious and present with the client, employing a style that is open, flexible, grounded, and confident.

1. Remains focused, observant, empathetic, and responsive to the client.
2. Demonstrates curiosity during the coaching process.
3. Manages one’s emotions to stay present with the client.
4. Demonstrates confidence in working with strong client emotions during the coaching process.
5. Is comfortable working in a space of not knowing.
6. Creates and allows for silence, pause, or reflection. (ICF, 2019b)

Essential Elements

Essential elements of this competency are that the coach:

•              Maintains full focus on the client.

•              Demonstrates curiosity.

•              Manages emotions.

•              Creates space for reflection.

Presence is exemplified in the first sub-competency by the coach being able to remain focused, observant, empathetic and responsive to the client. The following sub-competencies then offer examples of how the coach can demonstrate the quality of presence. Some key themes at the heart of this competency are the extent to which the coach truly partners with their client, staying grounded and open, even when faced with challenge, complexity and uncertainty, and the extent to which the coach works with the client beyond their coaching topic. Sometimes this is called “coaching the person” and not just the topic. Partnering has already been positioned as critical within the competencies covered so far and it is this focus on partnering that enables some significant qualities of a highly effective coaching conversation.

Partnering

Here are the key elements of partnering which are embedded within the philosophy of this competency:

•              Shows respect and equality.

•              Engenders trust and safety.

•              Empowers the client.

•              Helps to hold the client accountable for the work in the coaching process (see more on accountability in Chap. 13)

•             Underpins autonomous and developmental thinking and positive change for the client.

In practice, the coach can demonstrate this partnering in several ways. Firstly, it can be evidenced by the coach inviting the client to co-design the focus and direction of the session with comments such as “Where would you like to start?”, “How would you like to approach this?”, “Where would you like to go next?” and “How can I best work with you today around this topic?” Partnering is also experienced when the coach is open to and invites the client to disagree with the coach. This could be through the coach comfortably moving from their own frame of reference to that of the client, for example: “What my intuition says is   however, I may be wrong, what do you think about?” 

This invitation to disagree could also be demonstrated by the coach, if offering their perspective, doing so without attachment such as:” What is your reaction to what I just offered and please feel free to disagree with it.” Another aspect of partnering is when the coach plays back options or possibilities the client has expressed and invites them to choose what they would like to do with them. What is significant here is that the client has an agency and is the one who not only sets the agenda, but also sets the direction and approach the work will take in the coaching process. 

For example, the client might share several options for what they would like to move forwards with after the session and the coach may play them back by paraphrasing and clarifying their understanding and then inviting the client to choose which direction is going to be of most use to the client. This might be something like; “You have outlined options A, B and C, what do you want to do?” This approach is also helpful if the client brings several possible coaching topics into the session. Additionally, this play back is useful if and when the client might be exploring possibilities that could potentially be in conflict, not fully aligned or are very different, for example: “I’m hearing that you want to take a 6-month break and you are also intrigued by this new project: what would be most fulfilling for you at this time?”

Coaching is intended to support client’s growth and development beyond the coaching conversations and beyond the specific topics they bring into coaching and partnering with them is one of the keys to unlocking that growth and potential. Specifically, the coach can enable this by encouraging the client to formulate his or her own learning as opposed to doing it for them. In this way, the coach champions the client’s capability to assess their own experience by asking questions like: “What do you notice as you describe that situation?” and “What does that tell you?” or “What are you learning as you hear yourself describe that experience?”

Coach the Person

Now let’s look at the other key aspect of this competency, which is “coaching the person.” At an ACC level of coaching the coach is likely to hold a focus that is limited to the topic that the clients bring in to coaching.

At PCC and even more so at MCC level, there is an expectation that the coach will not only hold and work with the client’s topic, but they will also focus on how the client thinks, feels, learns, relates and creates. This might also extend to the client’s values and beliefs, how they view the world and how they see or want to be their place in the world. For example, the coach might ask: “How might this new project align with the values you shared earlier?” or “What are the beliefs and values that you will honor when you have that conversation?”

When coaching the person, the coach is also demonstrating empathy and responsiveness and showing they are fully observant to what is happening in the coaching process. This could be noticing and inquiring about client emotions or feelings such as: “I’m sensing some disappointment and I’d like to check ... how is this for you?” or “I can see your emotion and I know this is important for you, would you like to explore this further?” This brings us to the topic of the client’s emotions and in particular strong emotions.

The coach is expected to be able to appropriately hold the space for the client to fully express themselves and this may include expressing a strong emotion. This links back to the philosophy that we hold of the client being creative, resourceful and whole.

Expressing emotions, such as crying, does not automatically make a client un-resourceful, lacking in creativity, or broken. According to Rogers (1980), suppressing feelings for too long can lead to distorted, attacking, or hurtful outbursts. Coaching, on the other hand, provides a supportive space for clients to express and explore their emotions, promoting growth and progress. Therefore, it is crucial for coaches to create an environment where it is acceptable for emotions to be openly expressed.

To illustrate the importance of this, let's delve into the concept of Life Positions, which originated from the work of Eric Berne (1962), the founder of transactional analysis. Franklin Ernst (1971) further developed aspects of Berne's work and introduced the OK Corral model. In this model, there exists a healthy and functional position where both the coach and the client hold the perspective of "I am OK with me, and you are OK with me." This means that, even if a client is experiencing strong emotions or tears, their fundamental well-being remains intact. Both the coach and the client can continue the coaching process without assuming that the client needs to stop or that the coach needs to halt due to the presence of emotions.

Working with emotions comes naturally and comfortably to some coaches, while others may find it challenging. However, it presents an opportunity for valuable growth and self-reflection for coaches as they explore this aspect of their work and their own responses to others' emotions. This exploration directly aligns with sub-competency 3: "Manages one's emotions to stay present with the client," as well as various aspects of Competency 2: Embodies a Coaching Mindset. Coaches who effectively manage their own emotions can maintain presence and provide effective support to their clients.

In summary, the expression of emotions by a client does not imply their lack of resourcefulness, creativity, or brokenness. Suppressing feelings for too long can lead to negative outbursts. Coaching offers a safe space for clients to express and explore their emotions, fostering growth and progress. Coaches should create an environment where emotions are accepted. The concept of Life Positions, developed by Eric Berne and Franklin Ernst, emphasizes the importance of accepting oneself and others. Despite emotional displays, clients remain fundamentally okay, enabling the coaching process to continue smoothly. Working with emotions varies among coaches, offering opportunities for personal and professional growth. Managing emotions aligns with essential coaching competencies, such as staying present with the client and embodying a coaching mindset.

Another way to coach the person as well as the topic thereby demonstrating that. We are focused, observant and responsive by exhibiting curiosity with the intention of learning more about the client. Curiosity is shown by the coach genuinely inquiring about the client’s agenda and aspects of the client as a person as well as regularly seeking input from the client around their ideas and perspectives.

It is also relevant at this point to state that coaching is not therapy and there may be a time when the client’s level and nature of emotion indicates that another form of resource might be more appropriate and useful to the client. This is referenced in the ICF Code of Ethics Part 4. Ethical Standards, Section I—Responsibility to clients, item 7: Remain alert to indications that there might be a shift in the value received from the coaching relationship. If so, make a change in the relationship or encourage the Client(s)/Sponsor(s) to seek another coach, seek another professional or use a different resource. As previously outlined in Chapter 6, guidance on when and how to refer clients to therapy can be found in an ICF white paper called “Referring a Client to Therapy” (Hullinger & DiGirolamo, 2018).

Getting in the Way

Sometimes the coach’s presence is noticeable in its absence. The absence or reduction of our presence with our client may be due to certain factors, one of which might be strong client emotions which we have just explored. Another factor that can challenge our presence is the need to know. In so many walks of life, what we know seems to be important, we are conditioned and encouraged to know and we are, in many circumstances, valued by what we know. Academics, subject matter experts and specialists are paid because of what they know. Leaders are supposed to know what to do during organizational change, doctors are expected to know what is wrong with their patients. However, if we consider the humanistic approach (see Chap. 16), it may be that our knowledge can in fact be a distraction and even get in the way of the client being able to do their own work.

The humanistic approach embraces the belief that people have a “self-righting reflex” and given the right conditions, will be able to achieve their goal. A new coach may struggle with this concept as it is often quite a significant mindset shift from the social conditioning we have experienced around knowledge in other aspects of our lives. It can feel almost counter intuitive to think that we add value by not knowing. As we develop in our coaching practice, we come to realize that we do not know exactly what is going on for our clients or indeed ultimately what is best for them, not is it our role to do so. They are the subject matter expert on their life and our role is to be comfortable to be with them as they navigate their unknown, not trying to solve or fix, simply to create and offer them the space and time to think, being utterly present, deeply listening and supporting their thinking and feeling process with some clean and simple yet thought provoking questions and observations.

This challenge could be exemplified by considering a person who has had a successful career in their field and decides to leave corporate life and become a coach. Whilst they clearly grasp the theory of coaching and understand the competencies on paper, what can be noticeable is that, in their coaching practice, they simply cannot resist the desire or even the need to offer, to suggest, to fix, to drive, to direct. Their conditioning from years of being valued for they know in their professional career and their own perception of they add value that can be tied up and intertwined with that conditioning. This can mean that the coach’s own agenda and beliefs begin to seep into the work and in fact have the opposite effect of adding value as they end up getting in the client’s way. We have heard many new coaches say things like: “I didn’t do anything”, “I’m just not sure how I added value really”, “I’m struggling to help my clients get to their goal” or even “How can just listening help them? Surely, I need to give them something, otherwise what value am I being to them ... and they are paying me for that!”

This shift in our own mindset is also closely linked to coach maturity which we have explored in Chap. 1. Developing the capacity to be comfortable with not knowing may also involve therefore some personal work (perhaps with our own coach or a coaching supervisor) for us to explore our own beliefs about knowing and what it means for us to know, not know and how we perceive ourselves to have value as a coach. As coaches, our value can be enormous, it may be more a question of how we define and perceive that value.

Silence Is Golden

As noted above, this competency also addresses the extent to which the coach creates or allows space for silence, pause or reflection. This is an important aspect of the client being able to fully express themselves and for them to freely engage in the thinking and feeling processes needed for that fullness of expression. This space, the

 "Coaching space" plays a vital role in helping clients derive meaning from their thoughts and feelings. This process is closely linked to Competencies 7, which involves evoking awareness, and 8, which facilitates client growth. Creating space for the client can be as simple as the coach remaining silent, allowing the client to share, pause, and further unfold their thoughts. To illustrate this concept, we can draw a parallel with a game of table tennis, where players continuously hit the ball back and forth. When individuals are learning to coach, conversations often resemble this rapid exchange of questions and answers, leaving little room for reflection.

One crucial aspect of effective information processing and communication is the space between dialogues. It is during this space that words are not only heard but genuinely listened to. Within this "coaching space," we digest and process the words spoken, enabling us to formulate meaningful responses. Notably, in coaching conversations with experienced coaches, the pace slows down. The table tennis ball seems momentarily suspended in the air, creating a pause between the players before it lands, and the other person speaks again. This intentional slowing down provides the client with an opportunity to deeply listen to themselves and gain valuable insights from their own expressions. Simultaneously, it allows the coach to genuinely listen, absorb, and consider their next actions based on what they observe, notice, and experience throughout the coaching process.

It is important for the coach to give the client sufficient time for reflection, time to answer questions and simply to just give them time to think (Kline, 1999). Kline proposes that the quality of someone’s thinking is directly comparable to the quality of the listening they receive. All too often, coaches feel that they have to add value by asking great questions or offering some powerful insight and can therefore get caught up in their own agenda and desire for performance when all the clients might need is the space and time to think for themselves and be deeply heard and listened to. This is an important part of how the partnership and the dance between coach and client can be almost magical in inviting the client’s own wisdom to come forward.

Conclusion

This chapter concludes the trilogy of competencies that describes the domain of Cocreating the Relationship. We have highlighted and outlined the importance of partnering and the concept of coaching the person and not just the topic. We have also explored some of the things that can get in the way of the coach fully demonstrating this competency and ended with one of the most powerful coaching interventions: silence.