How learning to coach can make you a worse human

How learning coaching can make you a worse human

“What??” I hear you scream, “Never! Coaching makes you a BETTER human”. And, of course, even if you did not scream, you are right. Most people reap great benefits for their personal development when they are learning to coach:

- They learn to listen without preparing a reply

- They learn to ask for what is really important to another person

- They ask better questions

- They learn to suspend their assumptions and beliefs

- They experience that there are multiple truths and ways of being in the world and that one is not necessarily better than the other

- They experience themselves in a “not-knowing” position while still being able to help

- They learn to strengthen and support others without centering themselves

The list goes on and on. And yet – I have seen a few instances where what someone learned in a coaching education was detrimental to their kindness and compassion. Let me tell you a few stories.

Overemphasizing self-reliance

I was attending a fun outdoor Lindy Hop event in a park. The Lindy crowd is generally a little bit older. We even see the odd octogenarian on the dance floor, the majority being in their forties and fifties. That evening, the stereo was playing upbeat swing music, and the dancers were “hopping” joyfully. Suddenly, a little boy on a balance bike charged in, zigzagging through the dancers, coming dangerously close to a collision. As I was taking a break on the side, I looked to my neighbor saying that I was a bit worried and should we, maybe, find the parent or ask the boy to zigzag elsewhere? She replied: “No need to be worried, leave him his agency, he will learn soon enough when he falls.”

This is the kind of lack of compassion that I also see in an overdone coaching mindset. Just because we know people have resources and can develop on their own, we don’t have to let them fall into traps without warning them. Of course, as coaches we hold our life experience lightly and don’t assume that what a trap that we are seeing is always a trap for the other person. But not mentioning that we are aware of a danger that the other person may not be aware of is simply unkind.

Toxic positivity and patronizing

Need I say more? But I promised stories. So here is one. A group of my friends (some colleagues, some not) and I were enjoying a glass of wine at a beach bar in Spain. A friend was telling us about going through a rough time caring for her sick mother. One of my colleagues, maybe tipsy, stated: “Challenges are opportunities in disguise. What is the gift in this situation?” I almost spluttered wine.

I don’t think I have to explain how unkind and patronizing these words feel. Yes, we know that meaning can be made out of difficult situations. But that does not imply that difficult situations are not difficult or that they are there in order to bring us meaning.

Dehumanization through technique

When I was going through a difficult time in my life, I worked with a coach who I knew to be a very smart man whom I appreciated for his ability to think deeply and quickly about complex issues. He tends to be cerebral and witty. When I was telling him about my troubles, I could see him “do empathy” in a style that was not natural to him. As we have a good relationship, and as I wasn’t in the darkest despair, I was able to simply tell him to snap out of it and he did.

I have experienced fake feeling empathy, fake feeling “active listening” in the company of other coaches as well. Rather than encouraging us to respond naturally, we can learn to perform the “right” moves when we are learning to coach. The ICF competences and their performance evaluations based on these behaviors certainly don’t help here. Why not work on BEING helpfully empathetic rather than displaying empathy as a “tool” (see me cringe).

Coach everything that moves – hiding behind your training

Yes, I say that often. When you are learning to coach, you should coach everything that moves. BUT with consent!! The other person needs to know that you are coaching them. Even when you are in a friendly exchange with another person and a great coaching question comes to mind, I think it is wise to announce where this question comes from. For example: “Yeah, thank you for sharing – I learned something cool in my coach training that was helpful for me. They said that figuring out what you really want in great detail helps in this case. Would you like to try?”

Learning to coach can seduce people into wanting to be in the safe, decentered role as a coach all the time. Don’t get me wrong, it is a nice place to be: supporting another human being, learning about the way they make meaning in their life, helping them move forward. But it is not what friends do. In friendships, we take turn being the center: everybody’s needs are of equal importance (ok, maybe not all of the time but overall). If the “coach” never takes center stage, they become aloof, disconnected and run the risk of a poorer life as a result.

What do you think? In which ways did coaching make you a better or worse human being? If you want to share, discuss, hang out with cool colleagues or learn about our classes, why don’t you join one of our free meetups and exchanges?

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