Embracing Values - Helpfulness

Well, I failed my second attempt at the coaching observation assessment. In fact, I bombed! Partly that was down to prolonged poor sleep and my brain not being in any way geared towards the needs of the sessions. Partly it was down to working before the sessions and not taking enough time to prepare on the day.

But even if I’d remembered to include sufficient contracting, and hadn’t panicked about time and ended one session abruptly when I actually had half an hour left, I still would have failed. Part of the reason for that is that I hadn’t fully understood either the origin of my value of being helpful, or the potential harm it could do within the coaching relationship. And it’s not just coaching where being over-helpful can cause issues.

My value of helpfulness is nothing new. I’ve been helpful as long as even my mother can remember. As the eldest of what became a family of six children, I was always her ‘little helper’; supporting her with things like shopping, looking after the others while she tended a sick child, or walking the baby round the block to get them to sleep. Of course, there were times when I resented the assumption that I would always be helpful (mostly in my teenage years). And at age 16, walking a pram around the estate, in my head I was thinking, ‘please don’t think this baby’s mine - he’s my brother!’ But I never stopped being helpful.

I became a therapist in part because of my value of helpfulness. But one of the major criticisms of my coaching, all through this course, has been that I tend to be too directive. And I couldn’t see anything wrong with giving clients ideas they may not have had on their own.

But when the assessor commented that my value of being helpful was very obvious in my coaching sessions, I didn’t think she was complimenting my style!

So I did some self-reflection, first on helpfulness and then on being directive. Here’s what I’ve learned about my value of helpfulness.

As a pagan, I understand the Wiccan Rede, the short version of which says – ‘an it harm none, do as ye please’ – to mean that whatever you do should be either helpful or neutral, and never intended to hurt.

But we may never know what harm we cause unintentionally, and often without ever realising it.

Right at the heart of my desire to be helpful, I found a core issue of not wanting to be lonely. That the helping is a way to be accepted, wanted, even needed, so I won’t be alone. And whether I’m aware of it or not, that core feeling colours my coaching interactions – and of course, all my other ‘helpful’ actions. The vibration this core need creates makes it hard to be helpful without attaching hopes of getting something back for it – praise, respect, a feeling of competence or skill, or even being looked up to or exemplified as a role model. When someone isn’t grateful for my efforts, I feel aggrieved.

When I’ve been hurt that my helpee doesn’t appreciate what I’ve done for them, it’s because my value of being helpful has been violated. I tried to be helpful, but it didn’t work. There can be all sorts of reasons for this. Maybe they didn’t notice, didn’t want my help, or would have preferred to do it themselves? This is where my value of helpfulness lets me down.

Because, in trying to solve the other person’s problem, we’re subtly suggesting that we don’t think they can solve it themselves. Have you ever been annoyed when someone insisted on doing something for you? Have you ever just needed to offload, but ended up being given advice you didn’t want? Did the person get upset, huffy or fail to understand when you didn’t appreciate their response? That’s because their value of being helpful has just reared the ugly side of its head.

To organise my thoughts on the question of being directive, I used one of my favourite coaching models - BIG. It stands for Behaviour, Impact, Guidance. The behaviour is obvious - I’m too directive. Then I considered the impact on me, which was mainly that I couldn’t pass the course.

But the impact on my coachees was what blew me away.

I have the AI program, Copilot, to thank for opening my eyes. I wrote down some thoughts on the impact on clients, then asked Copilot for more. Its very first answer stopped me in my tracks.

Because, not only does this directive approach not support the coachee to realise they can achieve the goal for themselves, it can damage the relationship you’re working hard to establish. It reduces trust.

But the biggest impact is the loss of psychological safety. The person being ‘helped’ feels they aren’t the expert - you are - so they may not feel they have any ideas to contribute. Or they don’t come up with their own solution, because one’s been handed to them.

When you direct someone towards a solution you can see, they may miss out on the solution that’s perfect for them, because you haven’t given them the chance to think it through fully. This is where not only non-directive questioning, but also the use of silence can be invaluable.

Sometimes a person needs to reinvent the wheel, to understand why it’s round. Sometimes your coachee needs to consider the problem from the ground up, so they understand not just how to solve their problem, but also why it’s been a problem in the first place. In my hypnotherapy training, I learned that if you help a person heal, say a fear of lifts, that fear will show up in some other phobia if you haven’t also helped them heal the underlying reason for their fear of lifts. And creating their solution means they’re more likely to implement it, and helps increase their self-confidence and realise they’re more resourceful than they thought.

They may have created plans many times before, but never managed to stick to them. They may feel a failure, not because they don’t know what to do, but because they can’t make themselves do it. And perhaps the issue is that the action plan doesn’t suit their lifestyle. But perhaps it’s because there’s a core belief, unhelpful thinking, or unmet need that’s causing them to sabotage their own efforts. If the coach can’t help them uncover and heal this, then no plan is ever going to succeed for long.

That’s why we ask the challenging questions. That’s why we pursue the intuitive thoughts we have and the phrases that suggest a wider issue. That’s why we dig deeper and why we need the client to feel safe to say absolutely anything in our sessions.

And that’s why we need to be non-directive.

Because we don’t know the deep psychological reasons for our clients’ previous ‘failures’. Only they do, but they often aren’t aware of those reasons. My job as coach - and yours as a friend and confidante - is ultimately to help the person uncover those reasons and heal them.

That’s how I fulfil my ultimate goal of making myself redundant for that client – because they can now follow their own path, with their barriers to success removed.

Up to now. I’ve often begun by mentoring client, and then slowly switch to coaching as I feel their coachability increases – when I see them starting to think differently and appear to be in a better position to come up with their own solutions.

My new approach is the exact opposite. I now aim to start by helping them to understand and use their own resources, find their own solutions and grow their confidence, self-awareness and self-coaching skills; then, if appropriate, offer mentoring if I feel qualified to support them with something – like navigating the menopause.

That’s the approach the assessor has been looking for in my coaching observations, and it may be that it’s the approach that friends and family have been looking for from you.

And maybe it’s also what you’ve been looking for when you ask for support? (If so, feel free to direct them to this page, if your explanations don’t land with them!)