Building on our last newsletter and my reflection on Developmental Courage for coaches, this article explores Professional Courage. This can cover a lot of ground, but in general includes the following domains:
- Ethics
- Relationship with sponsors, organisations, system
- Re-contracting
- Feedback
- Building your practice
- In my role as a coach
- Saying no
- Marketing and brand
- Professional Conduct
Professional Courage
Looking at these through the lens of courage, where would your coaching and your clients benefit from you being more courageous?
Some examples that may inspire or enhance your reflection.
A coach may not feel what they do is valuable, so they do not pay adequate attention to contracting and making agreements and often run into problems with clients around expectations and follow through. And in this situation do not have courage to have the conversation to re-contract. And also continue to onboard clients unprofessionally.
A coach who needs to have the courage to clarify what “coaching” is for their client organisations or individuals. This is especially true when the relationship goes off track.
A coach who is uncomfortable with feedback and thus avoids checking in with their client on progress, value of coaching and what might make it more effective. This requires the courage to explore whatever “stuff” might be feeding your lack of comfort and often the courage to have the conversations around feedback and then process that feedback in Supervision.
When you, as a coach, look at your work and practice, where would you love to be more courageous? And, if you were more courageous how would that impact your clients?
