Challenge in Coaching: A route to new insight or shame and criticism?

At the end of last year, I attended a CPD day to explore shame in supervision and as part of day we looked at what might induce shame. My reflections from this led me to think about and review some of the coaching I had been doing, and what might go on for our coachees when we challenge them in a session. However, well we contract around levels of challenge might we/could we, despite all our positive intent, end up shaming the coachee? Or at the very least leave them feeling like they might have been criticised?

I am sure, for some, as you read this your response will be “no, not if you challenge in the right way”, and maybe this is the case when we challenge with an equal balance of compassion, love and support. After all, this is what Blakey and Day (2012) advocate when they highlight that with a balance of challenge and support, we can take our coachee’s to the “zone of uncomfortable debate”, also known as the “loving boot”, where the transformational work can happen. We could therefore reassure ourselves that if we provide a balance of love and support with the challenge there is no way we could shame our coachees.

So why am I suggesting that this may be the case? So much more goes on in the unconscious dynamic of the session, and more importantly after the session. And furthermore , we may not be aware of the client’s history and their relationship with challenge (in fact the coachee might not have considered their relationship with challenge and what it represents to them).

Starting with the contracting and seeking permission to challenge. When we first start working together, I always ask my coachees, “how much challenge would you like (or some such question)?” Their response is invariably: “lots”. But they are less clear on what “lots” means, looks or feels like. I often wonder if coachees respond in this way because on an unconscious level they believe it is good or expected to be challenged, and through family systems and organisation hierarchies their desire to please overrides their wanting to say no to challenge. . They may feel it would be wrong or unacceptable to say, “I don’t want to be challenged”, or “that’s too much challenge.” Therefore, in the unconscious dynamics of the coaching relationship they are perhaps wanting to please us in some way, or ‘be good’.

Secondly, I wonder how much capacity they may have to tolerate and sit with the challenge. Busy leaders and managers are often under extreme pressure and stress, and a simple challenge might just be too much! I was once working with a coachee who I had contracted with and had asked to be challenged. In one session I could feel the tension in the air on challenging him, and we were clearly in the ‘zone of uncomfortable debate’. At the end of the session, he thanked me for the challenge and said that he had appreciated it. However, he subsequently cancelled the next session and in our final review he made a quip stating that “you might have agreed with me more.” I have reflected on this with my supervisor, and I wonder if the challenge inadvertently led to him thinking and feeling his chosen course of action was wrong, inadequate and imperfect. Then post the session he believed that being inadequate meant he was not good enough and with that the shame arrived! I don’t know if that was the case, but I do believe it is important to hold the hypotheses that challenge might induce shame on some level.

Finally, what physiology and body language are associated with challenge? Challenge can come with different energy, which can shape how we show up when we challenge. How might this energy and shape influence the nature of the challenge. I recall Nancy Kline once telling me to “go and do a face audit” so that I was aware of how my face and its subtle changes might interrupt the thinker. This could be the influence of the energy that the challenge brings.

In sitting with this what came up for me was:

• What do we mean by challenge? How do we feel about challenge? How do we feel when we are challenged?
• When has challenge led to us feeling inadequate, shame, criticised or not good enough?
• Where does the challenge come from in us? What drive’s the challenge?
• What’s the energy associated with challenge?
• What might challenge represent to the coachee?

It is important we do bring some of what Jonathan Passmore calls the “grit in the oyster” and challenge as we are not there to be liked, be the coachee’s friend and have a cosy coffee chat. However, I believe it is worth reflecting on challenge – it’s nature and receipt of, because whilst most coachees ask for challenge there is the chance they might feel some shame at a later stage. To better understand how we might appear to our coachees it is important that we start with self and reflect on our own relationship with challenge.