THE COACHING SKILL OF CHALLENGING

Coaching is all about challenge. In therapy, you nurture and coddle. You make it safe and help a person to feel trusted and believed in. It’s different in coaching. Here you have to challenge your client because people come to coaching to step up to become more of who they can be and achieve more of what’s possible. This is about stretching, it’s about pushing forward, it’s about disturbing and shaking one’s world, it’s about holding one’s feet to the fire of accountability, it’s about asking for personal details to get specific. Coaching challenges in that it identifies and exposes cognitive distortions. It is to hold a question until your client answers it. It is asking the person to take responsibility for his or her life. It is holding the space so that your client can experience a “crucible of fire” for change. So challenge is inherent in coaching.

Given the innate nature of challenge to coaching, an effective coach challenges. Therefore developing your capacity for challenge and specific skills that enhance this ability is critical if you want to be increasingly more effective with your clients.