Through my own personal experience, I believe that as a coach aspiring to be transformational in ones competence, one may first need to create self directed awareness. It would be very essential to optimally clear out any emotional baggage and mental blocks that one may be carrying so that one’s threshold to be intuitive and facilitate / support the client’s emotions is high. Else, as a coach, one may subconsciously shy away from engaging in becoming a transformational coach as one’s own emotional threshold gets challenged. So the opportunity of adding transformational value to your client is lost. Being aware is like breathing, it is fundamental to our every day existence. Without awareness we are moving throughout life without breath (presence), without direction, without connecting with ourselves and thus others.
Coaching Application
This is done by questioning towards getting the client to explore himself /herself deeper. This requires a deeper level of acknowledgement, appreciation and compassion. It requires one to increase one’s emotional capacity to acknowledge and hold pain. This then creates a safe and supportive inner climate for the client enabling him/her the courage and motivation to further explore his / her inner being. This sheds light on any behavioral blind spots or “unconscious behavioural incompetence” and shifts the client’s sight of a perceived problem to recognition of his / her reality. This awareness, often an “aha” moment, creates the necessary inner movement of energy from a negative, dysfunctional space that creates blocks and limitations for the client to a positive, functional and liberating space which empowers them to move towards their desired outcomes, aspirations and potentials. In fact they may discover that it is possible to go beyond what they imagined was possible. Enabling the client to recognize that he/she can go beyond what they thought they were capable of. They get insight into their own greatness, their own “light”. Spirituality may call that “enlightenment”.
Transformational coaching therefore works through “aha” moments of deep self awareness. This leads to emotional shifts that then become transformational for clients. Most people often carry “emotional baggage” that often comes from one of two areas. One is from strong conditioning that may have helped them in the past (e.g. the negative adaptive child behavior) but is dysfunctional for them in the present and perhaps for their future. The second is from a mental belief or value which colors ones perception of self, others or situations. This is a “mental block” that one may carry which results in irrational, non adult (perhaps negative, critical parent) behavior.
If one had to compare a person with the classic example of the iceberg, then the part of the iceberg which floats (shows up) above the water, can be compared to what is visible in a person or the observation of perceived behaviour or problem. If we fix this perceived problem at surface level, as a coach, then we would only have addressed the symptom of the problem. This then would be limited and transactional in nature. Belief systems, perceptions, values, motivations and emotions are not easily visible and recognizable. Very much like 2/3rd of the iceberg, which is submerged under water and is not visible. Transformational coaching addresses this area and therefore this coaching involves much more exploration in first self awareness and visibility to the underlying cause of problems. Then the reframing of perspectives or shifting of focus to emotional areas would be the transformational coaching process to follow.
The need for transformational coaching may present itself garbed in a need for transactional coaching. So you may start by using transactional coaching, but you would have then only addressed the symptom of the client’s problem and not the cause. Transformational coaching therefore goes beyond the symptom to uncover the cause that the client may till then be completely unconscious of.
Transformational coaching also comes from the space that the coach believes that all clients are gifted with their own capabilities of insight and possess the wisdom they require to get to where they want to go and beyond. This beyond may be beyond the clients and coach’s ability to foresee. So really it is a dance that is capable of transforming the client and often the coach. And the holding of those moments together are probably the most precious moments of “awakening”.
Nelson Mandela once said, “Man’s biggest fear is not of failure. It is the recognition of what one is capable of; one’s own power which is so huge that it intimidates him.”
Reframing questions and asking challenging questions are useful tools that could uncover what’s hidden beyond the obvious. Questions leading to self awareness could take the form of challenging questions that address the blocks around the problem. For example, “What stops you from taking action towards . . .?” Or “So what would happen if this continued?” Or “What delays you from taking action?” “So is that what you prioritize?” However, what’s most critical in transformational coaching would be deep listening from the heart, tuning into clients feelings and concerns, taking in all the body language indicators instinctively and responding from one’s own intuition about the client.