LIFC 501 Discussions Board: Discuss the principles of trust and the obstacles to Coaching
Discuss the principles of trust and the obstacles to Coaching. How does trust influence the
context of the coaching relationship both positively and negatively?
One of the great privileges of being a coach is the opportunity to listen to and get to know other
people on a very intimate level. This requires a significant amount of trust on the part of both the
coach and the client. This is obvious for the client, as most of the discussion revolves around
them and their challenges. The client has to feel comfortable with the confidentiality agreement,
believing that their coach will maintain a very high degree of confidentiality. Trust is a
significant issue for the coach as well. He or she needs to know that the client is serious about the
relationship, and the opportunity to work on and improve their identified challenges.
In his bookCoaching: Evoking Excellence in Others(Routledge) James Flaherty describes how
the ability to have a complete and open, honest discussion arises from “absolute confidentiality”.
It is the final component in having full, mutual freedom of expression, the other two being
openness and listening (p. 46-47). Trust is also about clarity and commitment. Vince Malinaro in
his book,The Leadership Contract(Wiley) uses the correlation to refer to leadership but I
believe it is very applicable to coaching as well. When you are entering into a coaching
relationship, trust is dependent on the clarity you bring to the relationship. The questions he asks
us to consider as a leader are relevant to both the coach and the client (p.72-73). I paraphrase
them for this context:
What are the roles (coach and client) really about?
What are the client’s expectations? (This has to be considered and understood by the coach
as well).
What will success look like?
What value must I bring as the coach? As the client?
What impact must I have? (This is a more subtle question for the coach than for the client)
For the client there are a few additional questions (although you could argue these could apply to
the coach as well):
Am I up for this?
Am I fully committed to doing what I need to do to make this process (coaching sessions)
successful?
Am I able to handle the heat that I will be exposed to?
Am I prepared for the hardships that may come my way?
Am I committing to do this for the right reasons, or only to feed my ego?
As a coach I see it as my responsibility to set the stage for trust. Placing the confidentiality
statement up front helps but that is only the beginning. I believe trust starts from a sincere desire
to assist the client meet their objectives for hiring a coach in the first place. The questions above
then help frame realistic expectations at the outset. One of my challenges as I build my practice
is not to over sell what coaching can do, setting unrealistic expectations that if not substantiated
will result in the lack of trust.
Finally I view trust as a two way street, but it is my responsibility to establish trust first. I also
take the position that I will trust another until such time as they demonstrate that they are not to
be trusted, that “I’m Ok and you’re Ok”. Trust is contagious—if I act in a trustworthy way as the
coach, then the client is more than likely to do the same. If I say I will do something and keep
that commitment then the client will also keep their commitment tackle a task, write in their
journal or take an action.
The importance of trust in a coaching relationship, and how to build it
Naturally, the responses include several qualities, but the one that shows up most often istrust.
Building trust in a coaching relationship is crucial to the success of the coaching because people
are willing to be challenged if they trust the person coaching them. People often tell me that
they’re open to uncomfortable coaching conversations when they trust that the coach has their
best intentions in mind. In this context, I’m referring to themanager as ‘coach’and the direct
report as ‘coachee’—but this advice can be applied to any coaching relationship.
Unfortunately, there’s no simple, step-by-step process for building trust in a coaching
relationship. But my experience as a coach and Core Strengths’ insights on what makes a
successful workplace relationship can shed some light.
What is trust in a coaching relationship?
Trust means different things to different individuals. Some definitions that we use at Core
Strengths in the context of a coaching relationship include:
A belief in the reliability, competence, honesty, integrity, and positive intentions of your
coach or coachee
The freedom to be real and vulnerable with your coach or coachee without being judged
A high-trust coaching relationship creates an environment ofpsychological safety.Psychological
safetyis not about building relationships by avoiding difficult conversations. In fact, when
there’s psychological safety, you can dive into difficult conversations and achieve the outcomes
that both the coach and coachee desire.
Most people have been in a situation where they’ve said the wrong thing in a high-trust
relationship and the other person still gets their meaning. Conversely, you can measure your
words carefully in a low-trust relationship and still be misunderstood.
The role of integrity in a coaching relationship
The opposite of trust is lack of trust, where we tolerate each other but don’t truly commit to
participation in the relationship or conversation.
As everyone knows, trust is hard to build and easy to break. A coaching client recently said to
me, “I hold back from letting my true self be seen because my boss tells me about conversations
she has with others.”
As a manager, one of the best ways you can promote psychological safety and trust is to always
behave with the utmost integrity:
Make expectations clear and live them out in every interaction
Speak about people as though they were present
Demonstrate genuine respect and concern
Don’t disclose private conversations
Respect all, not just those who can do something for you
Speak up when others don’t adhere to this standard of integrity
Exploring unconscious bias in the coaching relationship
When we ask people who they trust and who they don’t, there tend to be three main reasons for
trusting or not trusting:
1. Past experiences with that person
2. Information about that person that others have shared
3. Not knowing that person well enough
But we also just trust some people naturally. We all have unconscious biases that contribute to
who we do and don’t trust implicitly, based on culture, personality, race, class, gender, accent,
appearance, mannerisms, and more.
As a coach, you need to explore your own unconscious biases to understand why you may or
may not trust a coachee. Ask yourself the following questions:
Who do you tend to assume has positive intentions and why?
How much of this is based on objective information about their competence and attitude,
and how much on subjectively liking them?
Do you support, listen to, or make yourself available to, some people more than others?
Who do you trust, what do you trust them with, and why?
Who don’t you trust, and why?
If you don’t know people well, is it easy or hard to trust them?
Trust is a two-way street. Coachees also bring unconscious bias to the table, and a productive
coaching relationship requires a reciprocal assumption of the other person’s positive intentions.
An environment of psychological safety requires that the coach show the same amount of
vulnerability that they’re asking of the coaches.
How to build trust in a coaching relationship
To address unconscious biases and previous experiences that may be impacting trust, coaches
should follow a process known as recasting the past, mastering the moment, and co-creating the
future.
Recast the past
Recasting the past is about challenging your previous assumptions, adding new information, and
being willing to exchange perspectives.
One reason for recasting the past could be that you have a manager-employee relationship, but
not a coaching relationship, and you want to begin this new type of relationship. To cast off
baggage from the past, it can be helpful to discuss why you’re sitting down together, what kind
of relationship you have currently, and what kind of relationship you want to have.
Step into the shoes of your coachees and consider:
What past experiences could be getting in the way of trust?
How might they see you now?
How can you change the trust landscape in your relationship for both of you?
Master the moment
Mastering the moment means managing behavior, emotions, and perceptions in real time to
make interactions more effective. Work with your coachees to create new experiences and
memories that are built on authenticity and trust and help ‘reset’ the relationship.
Co-create the future
Co-creating the future is interacting in a way that shapes how your relationship will develop over
time. The quality of today’s conversation becomes tomorrow’s past and adds another drop to the
trust bucket. The first step in co-creating a trusting relationship is getting to know your coachee
on a deeper level and genuinely allowing them to get to know you. This should be a regular
practice with everyone on your team, who are all different people and require different things
from you.
You can also co-create trust by showing that you trust them to make decisions. Empower your
coachees with as much choice as possible (within the realistic constraints of the organization)
and allow them to be accountable for those choices. At the center of all trusting relationships is
the ability for people to be themselves, to value themselves, and to value each other.Core
Strengths has the tools to help people better understand and value themselves and each other and
to build trust in their coaching relationships.
