Role of a coach in one word — Transformation
Lots of people ask me what do you do as coach? What does the client get out of coaching? Instead of explaining how I coach, I want to talk about why I coach and what does client get?
The title of this post already gave away the answer: Client’s transformation.
What is transformation?
It is not a destination. It is a journey and you *never* really arrive. But the more you go through the journey, the easier and better life gets. You feel more at ease in your skin, at peace in your mind and more at love in your heart. Most importantly you feel more in control, which is what subconsciously we are always seeking. It is not just “feeling good” about who you are, it is changing your idea of self and how your perceive world to what allows you to feel good.
Parents birth you, keep you alive till you can fend for yourself, sometimes grow you to become mature humans. But parents can only grow you to the level of their own growth. So if you are lucky and have parents who are truly “grown up”, you might become grown up too. For others the growth process stops really early, and then it’s just coping that they are doing all their life. Reacting to whatever circumstances are here instead of responding to them, until a major need for change occurs and they are forced to transform.
So a “good” coach’s job is to help you grow up and that process is called transformation.
Stages of Transformation:
Robert Kegan, Harvard professor and renowned psychologist explains the stages of growth in his adult development theory. Per his theory there are 5 stages.
Stage 1 — Impulsive mind (early childhood)
Stage 2 — Imperial mind (adolescence,<10% of adult population)
Stage 3 — Socialized mind (>40% of the adult population)
Stage 4 — Self-Authoring mind (>30% of the adult population)
Stage 5 — Self-Transforming mind (<1% of the adult population)
[Source: R. Keegan, In Over our heads (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University press, 1994]
First two stages are mostly childhood although some adults get stuck on those stages too. It’s the last three that matter the most for our conversation here. These stages are based on how we make meaning of “us” and world around us and to what level are we subjective or objective. Kegan explains that “we are subject, and we have object” and transformation is different than learning new information or skills. New information may add to the things a person knows, but transformation changes the way he or she knows those things.
Stage 3 — Socialized mind (Reliant): Here you care about what others think of you the most. Your idea of self is driven and derived by others expectations of you and others definition of you. So you are always trying to be in alignment with others expectations and beliefs as you start identifying with those as yours. You are always “guessing” others needs and reading between the lines. Highly sensitive to all inputs coming from social environment as they all have an impact on your sense of self. Also no sense of boundaries.
This is the stage where we are stuck in people pleasing, have no idea of our needs and wants, our idea of self (detached from others reflection of us). Any social rejection is catastrophic.
I would go on a limb and say more women get stuck here as they are culturally raised to be “good girls” i.e. align with others idea of who they should be.
Stage 4 — Self-Authoring mind (Independent): This is the most common “leader” and “confident” stereotype, where you have strong sense of your needs, wants, opinions and even believe those are the “right” ones. So you will tell others what they should do based on what you think, irrespective what they think. Self-authority is the key phrase here. You are aware of social environment around you but not identified with it. You always look through your lens of how does this information align with my belief system and throw away ones that don’t. Social rejection is hard but not catastrophic.
Stage 5 — Self-Transforming mind (Interdependent): This is the final stage where you have strong opinions, beliefs and framework but you are not married to them. Time to time, you are able to look objectively at your own frameworks and see their limitations and willing to change. You can also hold contradictions and paradoxes without a compulsive need to resolve them. This is where you can “observe” yourself and hence “you” become the object versus subject. You can look at your own lens or filters instead of always looking through them.
As a Coach, I steward my clients who are in Stage 3 to 4 and ones in 4 to 5. Once in 5, a coach still helps you take a step back and partner in your objective reflection leading to change in your beliefs by uncovering your blind spots.
Needless to say, you have to have a good coach, who themselves are very aware, able to take the step back, have gone through the self-transformation and can guide you and hold the space for contradictions.
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