A Peek into the Coaching Experience, Part 3: Choosing what Resonates

Crossing the Bridge.

Here we are at the final article in this short series about the executive and leadership coaching experience. The intent of this article was, and still is, to answer the question, “What will I get out of coaching?”   

The more I worked on this article, the more complicated the draft became. Every attempt I made to give this article structure rebelled against me. I wanted to share a list of powerful qualities you will develop through coaching, and how those qualities translate into real-world behaviors and outcomes.

I tried to package the list as a set of a few core qualities, the way popular business and management articles on Forbes and Insider do to allow you to absorb information quickly. The brevity of the list made it feel insufficient and almost superficial. It was a misrepresentation of the coaching experience, which is fluid and flexible. No matter how long I made the list of qualities, it still felt incomplete.

The writing process was telling me something, yet I still tried to force-fit how I represented coaching takeaways into a specific structure.

If my problem was how to structure information for a business audience, then the solution was to follow a tried-and-true format. Why couldn’t I make it work?

I had lost sight of my goal. My goal was never to optimize for scanning. My goal was to offer helpful insight to people who are curious about the coaching experience, in a way that would resonate with them and with me. I wanted the piece to feel true to my experience as a coach, and to the expressed experiences of my clients. I needed to refocus on my purpose, rather than fixating on a format.

“Coach the person, not the problem” is one of my favorite coaching tips that comes to mind alongside this experience. It so simply acknowledges that people are distinct from their problems. 

While problem-solving is an analytical exercise with concrete solutions, people-coaching is about understanding the human experience with their topics.

In my case, a belief had crept into my writing mindset. That belief told me that to be credible, I needed to write like other authors of short articles for leaders. I disregarded my intuition that something wasn’t working. It was only after I recognized this tension, and reconnected to my original purpose, that I was able to release the limiting belief.

Now here I am, typing away faster than I could before, without a list in sight.

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Coaching inspires people to repeatedly cross the bridge from self-understanding, to acting on that knowledge.

It starts with giving attention and space to what resonates with you, and to what doesn’t. It translates into a choice: to honor or resist what resonates. 

Honoring the resonance is taking a trip across the bridge. An exercise in self-authority. 

Self-authority is the ability to take a stand for what is true for you, even when it means countering your own mindsets, behaviors, and long-held beliefs. It can show up as decisiveness and action just as much as it can be adaptable or still.

The more you practice self-authority, the stronger it becomes. You become more adept at distinguishing yourself from the stimuli of your environments, and choosing how you respond to them: What is happening? How is it impacting me? How do I want to be as a result? 

To share a few real-world examples from clients who practiced their self-authority:

• A woman surprised herself when she said in a conflict, “That’s not going to work for me.” Her default had been to go along with the preferences of others. In the times she felt compelled to put herself last, she started to pause and reflect on what she needed most in that moment. The repetitive practice of identifying her own needs – and quieting the voice that told her not to – led to a shift in her default behavior. Her communication became clearer, she made decisions faster, and she built negotiation skills that gave her a literal seat at the table.
• A chief of staff felt more grounded and secure when they released themselves from absorbing the stresses of their president’s direct reports: “I now have an invisible barrier that protects me from voluntarily taking on what other people are accountable for.” Personal accountability was a key value for this person, and they felt annoyance towards co-workers who did not demonstrate the same. This chief of staff realized that to truly take a stand for their value of personal accountability, they needed to stop taking responsibility for the president’s leaders – and made this choice repeatedly until it became a habit. 
• A health center director found more sustainable ways to lead during an intense period in the pandemic. He knew he and his team were burning out from being in reactive mode, but it appeared to be the only way to deal with the situation. The level of urgency and fear of a misstep was too high. He recognized they needed another perspective, and took a figurative step back. His intuition said that his empathetic side – the side he connected most with himself – was what the team needed most. He took a stand and brought this consciousness to his leadership to create a steadier work experience.    

The journey across this figurative bridge to “choose what resonates” leads to greater confidence, clarity, compassion, and creativity.

The choice is in service of growth, and leads to positive ripple effects even greater than one may imagine possible. What will you get out of executive and leadership coaching? It’s this.

As we close out this series about the coaching experience, reflect on what these insights have sparked for you. We explored the power of coaching to ground you in your values, and to guide you to build a personal leadership framework (Part 1). We talked about the coaching relationship, and the tactics of questions and new perspectives leading to self-discovery (Part 2). And here we are, rounding out the discussion with the insight that self-leadership is not a one-and-done.

What’s a bridge that you’re trying to cross? What is going to help you take a stand for it?

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