The ICF coaching competency of Co-Creating the Relationship combines the “best friends” of Establishing Trust and Intimacy and Coaching Presence. In our journey for mastery and excellence, coaching presence is the hallmark of an excellent coach. It is being open, flexible, and confident with your clients. You are giving them the gift of time, full attention, and deep listening. Coaching presence helps create a special and strong bond between coach and client.
How do you create this “coaching presence?” It is about letting your real self show through. It begins as you get centered before the call and put aside problems from your own life events for the moment to be there for your clients. “Centering” means remembering the person you want to be as a coach. It helps you be respectful and to listen without bias. When you show up as your real, caring self, you earn deep trust from your client. You are open to not knowing and willing to take risks. You see many ways to work with your clients and trust your gut to choose in the moment what might be most effective. You use gentle humor to create lightness and energy that conveys your presence.
Professional coaching frequently happens over the phone. So voice tone and deep listening for underlying themes and assumptions communicates your presence.
Coaching also occurs face-to-face. This can sometimes be more difficult because of the distractions involved with the visuals of context, body language, and dress. These distractions can interfere with your listening skills. But it can also be fun getting to know your client in this personal way, if you are lucky enough to live near each other. You can select a place for your conversation that is consistent with who you are as a coach. Will you meet in a park? A coffee shop? A study room in the library?
When you coach through email, your presence is felt in your careful word choices. Use of caps and punctuation is essential to communicating your intentions. Use of emoticons can help with visualizing your facial expressions and getting your meaning accurate.
Your coaching presence is confirmed not only by your words, but also by your chosen vocabulary, and how comfortable you are in your identity. Letting your presence show through means setting aside your own issues, and committing to being there for the other person in a friendly way. The client will read your presence and will sense your intention. Your presence will linger with the client like a delicate perfume long after the session ends.
By Linda Michael, PCC and Marceta Reilly, PCC
Coaching for Results Global, Inc.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
On a recent coaching call my client came to the call breathless, hurried and sounding distracted. Despite my queries trying to set the coaching agreement about what she wanted from the call on that particular day, she insisted that “everything was fine” and that she couldn’t think of anything pressing to talk about that day. So I said, “you sound distracted, harried and breathless.” She was amazed that I could hear so much through the phone and acknowledged that she was very anxious about an upcoming meeting. That became the focus of the coaching session. But not before I suggested that she take a minute just to breathe deeply a few times. I maintained a silent presence on the other side of the line to allow her space to rest and reset.
I hope that presence will “linger on like a delicate perfume” with my client. Thank you for that analogy!
Full presence “is” such a rare and beautiful gift we can give one another. Over and over again, I joyfully witness the profound effect this gift can have on any relationship. It is like an arrow that travels straight from one heart to another. It is a treasured gift to give and receive.
I found your comments about coaching through email particularly interesting. I believe that college instructors who teach online can have a powerful impact on their students through not only thier social presence, but in their careful and intentional use of language skills, which is currently the work of my dissertation.
By the way, I had a client tell me last week that our coaching sessions are like her “mojo” that help her move forward in the direction she really wants to go! Maybe that’s called a “lingering energy boost”?
I loved the analogy at the end of this article on coaching presence–”Your presence will linger with the client like a delicate perfume….” I think being fully present with our clients is the most important gift we can give them as coaches. I had a client tell me that they think about me as the good angel that sits on their shoulder and helps them remember who they want to be and what they want to say in each interaction in which they engage. Now that is a long-lasting, lingering perfume and a great testimony to the power of coaching.