A Coaching Model Created by Birte Kuhn
(Conscious Leadership and Corporate Coach, CANADA)
Courage is the ability to act in the face of fear. It is the choice to confront something that frightens us, that causes pain, or that signifies uncertainty. Without courage, we would not be able to act upon our dreams and goals. In coaching the client requires courage to boldly express their dreams and goals and to take action to change the status quo.
Compassion:
Compassion is made up of two words, “co” meaning together and “passion” meaning an intense or strong feeling. It encompasses love as a virtue along with conscious intention for deep levels of social connection. Before we can express care and love towards others we need to cultivate the same care and love for ourselves (self-compassion). Self-compassion is an important part of the coaching process, as it is required to explore your values and beliefs. In that, it goes hand in hand with self-awareness.
Creativity:
Creativity is defined as the use of imagination or original ideas. In coaching it is the process by which the client generates new lines of thinking that are authentic expressions of who the client is. It’s about coming from a consciousness of being at choice, of being the author of one’s life, and for living authentically regardless of one’s circumstances. In coaching, process creativity is required to create space for something new. It helps the client to get unstuck by being open to discover new opportunities and explore new perspectives.
Awareness:
Self-awareness is the conscious knowledge of different aspects of the self, including one’s character, strengths, weaknesses, behaviors, emotions, and values. It plays a crucial role in how we understand ourselves and how we relate to others, both in personal or professional situations. Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and therefore an integral part of the coaching process, as it helps the client to explore his/her values and motivation related to a goal. In the model, awareness sits at the overlap of courage and compassion, as it takes both to cultivate awareness.
Curiosity:
Curiosity is the desire to learn and is linked to inquisitive thinking such as exploration and investigation. In coaching the client uses curiosity, when he/she explores multiple options, brainstorms ideas, tries different perspectives, and discovers opportunities. Curiosity sits in between compassion and creativity.
Learning:
Learning is the process of gaining knowledge or skills through experience, study, or by being taught. In coaching, process learning happens hand in hand with awareness (learning about oneself) and curiosity (exploring opportunities and perspectives) and it manifests itself through actions.
Growth:
Personal Growth is the overarching goal of every coaching relationship. It is the continuous process of gaining self-awareness and developing oneself to achieve one’s fullest potential. Personal growth provides both the incentive and the means to become the best possible version of oneself.
The Coaching Cycle:
Vision:
At the beginning of each coaching relationship or coaching session, the client will define their vision. It is crucial for the success of the coaching session that the goal is clearly defined. Should the goal change during the coaching process the client and the coach need to re-contract, which means creating a new coaching agreement?
Drive:
Once the coaching goal has been defined, the client needs to explore what drives him/her. It reveals the “why” of the client and what reaching the goal means to him/her. Uncovering the client’s motivation and his/her values and beliefs is important, both to validate the goal and to identify the best way to get there.
Alignment:
The client has identified his/her goal, as well as his/her values. The alignment step is making sure that those two things match up. If the client’s goal isn’t in line with his/her values, it will be difficult to achieve results, as there will be a lack of commitment.
Nurture:
The next step in the coaching process is to nurture ideas, options, and opportunities. It includes looking at the situation from different angles and trying out various perspectives.
Strategy:
After exploring different ideas and options the client develops his/her success plan. The plan clearly defines the steps that need to be taken, as well as possible challenges and potential obstacles and how these can be addressed.
Action:
This is the final step of the coaching process before the process possibly starts again from the beginning. The client finally steps into action and executes the success plan. During this process, the coach will continue to support the client and help him/her deal with potential obstacles and challenges. The last part of the action phase is a review to evaluate if the goals have been achieved.