Posted on Mon, Apr 23, 2012 @ 07:00 AM
Executive Coaching can be an unsettling process to someone who has not had the opportunity to participate before. Sometimes the whole idea of talking with someone who will be messing around in their business can lead strong individuals to hesitate in their participation.
Reluctance to coaching can take several forms:
- Failure to set up appointments
- Missed appointments
- Not doing the work
- Avoiding difficult topics
All of these behaviors can be traced back to set of common themes. Internal, personal resistance to change. A fear of someone getting too close. Not wanting/willing to look weak. A perceived loss of control.
Powerful But Not Fatal. All of these themes are powerful, but they do not have to be fatal. Coaching is the process of facilitating change.
Openly addressing any of the above behaviors gives both the coach and the coachee the opportunity to discover things they did not know about themselves, including the ability to deal straightforwardly with very difficult issues.
Identify and Label. The most important step in dealing with reluctance is to identify it and label it in an honest, straightforward way. Calling it what it is frees both parties up to have the hard discussion around what is creating the reluctance and what they want to do to remove it.
This recognition and removal opens up opportunities to talk about where reluctance may be showing up in other areas of the individual’s professional life. This is where the real growth begins.
