As you know from my articles and videos, establishing and maintaining a coaching agreement are at the heart of what makes coaching coaching. A foundation of ethical coaching practice is that you don’t coach without an agreement…
So we do need to clarify goals. The problem is, most coaches rush into this process thinking, “I have to get through this step to get to the ‘real’ coaching,” and that’s largely due to a misunderstanding of goals, goal setting, and emotions.
Logical Conversations Create Superficial Goals
Take a moment to read through the International Coaching Federation’s definition of their 3rd core coaching competency: Establishes and Maintains Agreements. As you read, consider: Where’s the emotion?
Definition: Partners with the client and relevant stakeholders to create clear agreements about the coaching relationship, process, plans and goals. Establishes agreements for the overall coaching engagement as well as those for each coaching session.
- Explains what coaching is and is not and describes the process to the client and relevant stakeholders
- Reaches agreement about what is and is not appropriate in the relationship, what is and is not being offered, and the responsibilities of the client and relevant stakeholders
- Reaches agreement about the guidelines and specific parameters of the coaching relationship such as logistics, fees, scheduling, duration, termination, confidentiality and inclusion of others
- Partners with the client and relevant stakeholders to establish an overall coaching plan and goals
- Partners with the client to determine client-coach compatibility
- Partners with the client to identify or reconfirm what they want to accomplish in the session
- Partners with the client to define what the client believes they need to address or resolve to achieve what they want to accomplish in the session
- Partners with the client to define or reconfirm measures of success for what the client wants to accomplish in the coaching engagement or individual session
- Partners with the client to manage the time and focus of the session
- Continues coaching in the direction of the client’s desired outcome unless the client indicates otherwise
- Partners with the client to end the coaching relationship in a way that honors the experience
As you can see, most of this language focuses on practicalities. Most of the points are also a kind of “get it done and move forward” step. This misses the importance of maintains in “Establishes and Maintains Agreements.” In the Emotional Intelligence Coach Certification, we invest deeply in the notion of USING agreements as a foundational process – something we come back to over an other. But for now, I want to focus on the emotional gap.
A lack of attention to emotion will lead to unclear goals with insufficient commitment. Clients move into goals that sound good (and often get caught in the “I need to change” trap), and we don’t discover the deeper substance… which leads to insufficient emotional engagement in the goals.
This article is from the 🌱 Emotional Intelligence Coach Newsletter
Click here & choose the newsletters that will help you practice and grow emotional intelligence
How To Handle Clients Who Are Unsure of Their Goals
I used to jump right into “What do you want to work on today?” and I’d take the client’s first answer as the real answer. Over time, I’ve found most clients are not quite sure. In a transformative coaching process, even very senior leaders with clear performance expectations struggle with the real answer… because it’s actually a very big question.
Here are three questions to consider about the question of goal setting:
More Trust = More Honesty
I suggest considering the level of trust to be really honest about this conversation. It’s a big risk for someone to tell you what’s deeply challenging or where their heart longs to go. Most likely, this means that the real goals will emerge over time. That might sound like, “If you’d like, we can come back to this in one of our future sessions – how does that sound?”
Add Empathy
While empathy is mentioned in other ICF competencies, it’s crucial here. Adding empathy to the mix allows clients and coaches to feel connected – and in that connection, greater clarity emerges. That might sound like, “Thank you for sharing your feelings. I’m touched.”
Emotions are Signals
Remember emotions are there for a reason. When someone’s talking about a change, an aspiration, a direction… can you clue into the emotional glimmers that signal significance? By lifting those up, you and client will get closer to the real goals. That might sound like, “When you talked about ____, I heard some added energy in your voice – would you like to tell me more about that?”
If you try out these approaches, please let me know how it goes! In the meantime, I hope to see you at one of our global EQ webinars or Coaching Connections.
… and don’t forget to Click here to subscribe to the EQ Coach Newsletter.
Whether you’re a professional coach, or contemplating earning certification as a professional emotional intelligence coach*, or you’re someone who uses coaching techniques to support others: of course these questions apply to us first.
* Did you know? In addition to top-level accreditation from the International Coaching Federation, the EQ Coach Certification is one of a handful of coaching certifications in North America that also provides master’s level credit? You’ll earn almost ⅓ of your MBA or MA in this program.
For more on EQ and Coaching 🌱, I recommend:
Neuroscience ‘tricks’ for change
- How Emotional Intelligence Coaches Use Emotions in Goal Setting - October 2, 2024
- 3 Winning Strategies for Successful Change Leadership: Coaching with Emotional Intelligence - September 4, 2024
- 3 Emotional Intelligence Tips for the Essence of Coaching - July 31, 2024