CHALLENGE— IN 5 DIMENSIONS

As a Meta-Coach you know that we frame the coaching skills in terms of two seemingly contradictory values— compassion and challenge. You also know that an ideal coach, an expert coach, is a person who has developed the skill of compassionately challenging. You know that our catch word for this being able to communicate ruthless compassion. That means, believing in people and their potentials as we do, we take responsibility to awaken them, challenge them, and stay with them through thick and thin so that they do not sell themselves short.

Now over the years I’ve written numerous articles on the skill of being able to challenge people. There’s a reason for that. There’s a reason for continually coming back to focus on this theme again and again. Why? Because to coach is to challenge. That’s because people who are clients need to be challenged. Further, on the feedback form that we use to identify and measure your coaching skills, we have “challenge.” We also have “confrontation.” Those are two dimensions of challenge. And there are others. Here are five. Next post— what challenge is not.