If you have ever engaged in life coaching before, or are familiar with the profession in general, you might be aware that coaching involves just a little bit of listening on behalf of the coach. Okay, maybe more than a little bit – in fact, most professional coaches listen about 80% and talk about 20% of the time. That’s a bit of a discrepancy, but like all things us coaches do during coaching, there’s a reason for it. But without getting too deep into why listening actually matters for the client (that’s for another day), what I would like to do is shed some light as to what the coach is actually doing during the listening process.
Let’s put it another way: is the coach playing mental solitaire in their head and figuring out what they want to eat that night, or are they actually doing something useful?
Let’s talk about what’s going on in the head of the life coach who is so intently listening to every word you’re saying, and hopefully by the end we’ll have demystified at least some of the coaching process!
1. Coaches listen with their head
During my recent coaching conference here in Phoenix, AZ, Dr. Marcia Reynolds theorized that coaches listen from three different sources, or three different parts of the body, that can inform their questions and guide their feedback to the client. This couldn’t be more spot on to explain the listening process, and of these three parts, I must admit that I listen from the “head” more than any other part (every coach has a primary part they depend on the most, yet all three play a role). So, what does that mean for my clients?
It means that my clients are getting a coach that is coming from a place of logic and practicality above all else. My coaching style (and lifestyle, to be quite honest), is one of being detail oriented, being pragmatic, and focusing on what is achievable and what isn’t. Do emotions come into play here? Sure, but they take a back seat to the tangible details of the situation.
Thus, while listening to my clients, I’m trying to pick up on every single important detail I can. Repeated phrases, words with inflection and emotion, situations that are urgent and of high priority, deeply held values and beliefs, and any and all patterns that I can detect (and then organize in my mind) – they all come into play when listening from the head. As a side note, many clients fear that they aren’t making sense during their “rambling” in a session – there’s no need for them to worry about that, since the coach is organizing the client’s words as they go, so they don’t have to.
As a coach, listening with your head is listening to the facts, and then helping the client to find out what to do with them, simple as that.
2. Coaches listen with their heart
As the second part of the body that coaches listen from, this is where I truly “connect” with my clients, put myself in their shoes, and ultimately intellectually invest myself in their lives and concerns. The word that sums all of this up: empathy.
You know, empathy is a funny thing. We’ve all heard the phrase “we fear what we don’t understand,” right? I would submit that empathy is the exact opposite of this phrase – it represents the desire (not necessarily achieving) to relate to another individual, to understand where they’re coming from, and to be tolerant of any decision they make due to the reasons they have for making it. Must we agree with such decisions? Of course not, but empathizing with another individual is the ability to understand such decisions, which is something different entirely.
What does empathy have to do with coaching? Understanding where someone is coming from, without preconception or judgment, establishes a level of trust with the client, sure, but more than that, it give the coach the motivation for caring about the client, and by extension, the problems they are facing. Put another way, listening with the heart gives meaning to why a coach might listen using their head.
Listening with the heart also interjects emotion into the coaching process. If I feel the pain that you as the client are going through, would you imagine that my eventual response will contain a softer, more authentic tone to it? You bet it will.
3. Coaches listen with their soul
Also referred to as the gut, the third place a coach listens from is the soul (which I think sounds better, and is more fitting). Listening from the soul is all about fear, or the lack of it. A coach will commonly hear about seemingly insurmountable obstacles from a client who states they have no knowledge or ability to overcome them. Coaches listen around such obstacles, and have absolute confidence that such obstacles not only can be overcome, but will! That said, it’s kind of hard to “bum out” your coach – he simply sees the light at the end of the tunnel, even if you don’t. Is this overconfidence? Some may say so, but I for one have never come across a problem that can’t be fixed, with the right perspective, of course.
Listening from the soul (or gut) also brings about this idea of intuition, a sense of knowing the direction someone should go absent all of the facts, or at least, the awareness of all of the facts. Besides your brain, your gut has the largest number of neurotransmitters in it than anywhere else in your body (Stephen Colbert was right!). These nerve endings have to be there for a reason, right? The next time you’re sitting across from your coach, wondering what the heck it is he’s doing, maybe he’s listening to his intuition, and that may just be the precursor to a powerful question that opens you up to a possibility not yet considered.
Do you listen with your head, heart, and soul in life? Assuming we all listen to one of those more often than the others because of our personality, which one do you find is more likely to show up for you? Is there an aspect to listening that these three don’t cover? Comment below!
