7 Habits of Highly Effective Coachees: #7 Avoiding Over-reliance on Your Coach

Author: Debbie Inglis

Website: squaretwo.co.uk

In this final post of my blog challenge for #ICW2019 (International Coaching Week), I’m focusing on a potential downside of the coach-coachee relationship. Sounds like I’m ending this series on a negative topic, but it has its basis on the positive coach-coachee relationship!

When you work with a coach:

• you feel really listened to, respected, and understood,
• you feel supported to step out of your comfort zone and try new actions and behaviours without being judged,
• you see yourself making progress,
• you discover new things about yourself,
• your confidence is boosted,
• you find solutions to problems,
• you receive honest feedback

… and much more.

Thus, it’s not hard to understand why coachees may not want this relationship of mutual respect and trust to come to an end.
The risk of this is minimised by the process of coaching and the mindset of the coach. For example, a coach will be helping you

• recognise strengths that you already have,
• come up with your own answers,
• identify how your new learning & increased self-awareness can be applied in other situations, thus increasing your own self-reliance.

Useful questions to ask yourself towards the end of a coaching programme
Here are a few questions you can use to check your level of self-reliance:

• What are my thoughts about coming to the end of this coaching programme?
• How confident am I feeling on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being most confident) about moving forward beyond the end of the coaching programme?
• What resources am I aware that I already have, and what have I learnt, that will help me move forward on my own when the programme finishes?
• What can I put in place with my coach before the coaching finishes, to build my self-reliance (if I feel this is needed)?

This last one may already be planned by your coach, as part of an ‘Exit session’.

Which other questions could you usefully ask yourself?

Of course, we’re always learning – about ourselves, our beliefs, what makes us tick etc. … and engaging in a new block of coaching on a different focus area can be useful without it being about over-reliance on the coach.
I think the key thing here is that your awareness is raised to the idea, and your purpose for continuing with coaching is about providing you with new learning opportunities, and your self-reliance continues to increase.

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Debbie Inglis is a Leadership Coach specialising in Mental Toughness & Resilience. She also delivers accredited Coaching Skills Training and is a Supervision Coach. Debbie works across the UK and Internationally with leaders and their teams to maximise leadership performance, create more resilient, confident, and motivated teams - in a way that brings out the best in them.

Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter

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