The Courage to be Vulnerable - for Client and Coach

Judith Barton, Director of Coaching

If you are in the United States and switch on breakfast TV the majority of the stations have a bright breezy air with short popular segments. One programme that bucks this trend is “Morning Joe” on MSNBC. Morning Joe is co-hosted by Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. Joe was a former lawyer and Republican member of the US House of Representatives from Florida’s First District from 1995 to 2001, Mika is a journalist who often shares the fact she is a Democrat – so a lively debate ensues.

What makes me keep watching is the depth of discussion a cross between BBC Breakfast and Newsnight, with humour, sarcasm and discussion on British sport. Sometimes Katty Kay BBC America journalist is a guest which makes me feel more connected when I hear her voice and smile at the quality of her arguments. Anyway, on such a morning, Joe introduced a guest he described, (Brené Brown, author of ‘Rising Strong’, published by Vermilion in 2015), a research professor who was making a difference to how individuals run their organisation and manage their people in the US. Brené’s work focuses on courage to take the step, the bravery needed to be vulnerable, to say it is OK to fall down, and the strength to get up and move forward.

In her earlier publication ‘Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead’ she quotes Theadore Roosevelt powerful quote from his 1910 ‘Man in the Arena’ speech: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how strong the man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly;… who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

One of the things that makes Brené’s work interesting to me is her background research and what has led her to her writing. She describes how she has fought against the qualitative research, the introduction to ‘Rising Strong’ describes her time as a doctoral student, trained by research professors to choose evidence over experience and data over story. Whilst non-research professors were reminding her she should be a live to false dichotomies she quotes “either you’re this or you’re that”. She goes on to say how she learned when faced with either or dilemmas to ask “who benefits by forcing people to choose?” This rang a loud bell in my head, in situations like this I ponder “who’s asking the question?” and this often leads to the next question “for what purpose?” Brené gives an example of benefits; traditional quantitative researchers benefited if the social work profession decided their quantitative work was the only path to truth.

There was very little training in qualitative research methods and the only dissertation option for Brené was quantitative. As a career professor and researcher she describes how the way to get on was through “if you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist”. Brené Brown cites her light bulb moment in the 1990s when Paul Raffoul a professor gave her a copy of the editorial by Ann Hartman ‘Many Ways of Knowing’. “In the editorial Hartman wrote: This editor takes the position that there are many truths and there are many ways of knowing. Each discovery contributes to our knowledge, and each way of knowing deepens our understanding and adds another dimension to our view of the world… Both the scientific and the artistic methods provide us with ways of knowing.”

As coaches it seems to me we work with stories all the time. Our clients often open a session with a story, which requires deep listening and probing to begin untangling the story. Imagine a very tangled necklace, it may need more that one pair of hands. Just in the same way a client may find using a coach key to untangling their story and their thinking. For a client to achieve their goals they are often taking risks dealing with their self esteem and pride. Ultimately to achieve their goal they must be in the arena. Returning to the Roosevelt quote “the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena”, in British parlance “you’ve got to be in it to win it”.

The arena could be any environment where we might show up and risk being seen, the classroom, the office, the interview, the teambuilding exercise, chairing the meeting. This is your arena, your moment of courage to be vulnerable, this is the difference from those who sit on the sidelines.
What is clear to me as a coach, every client will have a unique story. I never cease to be amazed by the capability of clients. What I personally advocate is we all need ‘stretch’ in our lives to do more or things different than we thought we could. For me this is healthy, it keeps us mentally fresh and sharp.

For this we need to be in our arena. Being in our arena means we will be vulnerable. Vulnerability is courage – “vulnerability is not winning or losing, it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome”. Think of that job interview – you put yourself forward with little or no control over the outcome. The personal risk, the vulnerability, the courage to apply. Other people, the sideline people, those who observe from the cheap seats are often quick to comment and dare I say criticise but not brave enough to put themselves in the arena. I am sure many of us have experienced the comments from the cheap seats, I have – and it is an important life rule to choose not to listen and don’t become a cheap seat commentator.

Brené Brown argues there are some basic principles, she calls them “basic terms of emotional physics – the rules of engagement for rising strong:
1. If we are brave enough often enough, we will fall at some point – getting up and learning from this is the key.

2. Once we fall in the service of being brave, we can never go back – when we are courageous and we try something new in our arena we are learning and therefore have built knowledge. For a coach this is the continuous development we should seek through reflection, supervision and application to practice.

3. This journey belongs to no one but you, however, no one successfully goes it alone – this is your clients journey and your journey as a coach a successful coaching/mentoring relationships knows when you are better together and when it is best to separate. Both client and coach should access their own CPD, peer support and networks – it is your journey.

4. We’re wired for story – neuroeconomist Paul Zak says hearing a story with a beginning, middle and end causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin chemicals trigger the ability to connect, empathise and draw out meaning.

5. Creativity embeds knowledge so that it can become practice. We move what we’re learning from our heads to our hearts through our hands – think of using rehearsal in coaching or working with a client who uses creativity to develop their ideas in a session.

6. Rising strong is the same process whether you’re navigating personal or professional struggles – our worlds overlap, there is no separation between business and personal. Clients often ask am I ok to talk about this? We are whole people, one part of our life affects the other.

7. Comparative suffering is a function of fear and scarcity – remember to respond with empathy and compassion.

8. You can’t engineer an emotional, vulnerable, and courageous process into an easy, one-size-fits-all formula – everyone of us is unique and a positive outcome will require effort and an element of risk. As coaches we must continually refine our skills to support clients and have access to supervision to support ourselves.

9. Courage is contagious – others will benefit from your courage.

10. Rising strong is a spiritual practice – Remember “grace will take you places hustling can’t” from Liz Gilbert’s Instagram.

Coaching with Silence

Martin Hill, Senior Tutor BSC

“As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.” Benjamin Franklin

In a couple of recent supervision sessions two coaches discussed sessions where they had asked few, if any, questions and yet at the end of the sessions it was evident that progress had been made and the client had thanked them for their assistance.


Both coaches were a little despondent and frustrated, saying that they had “done nothing” and were questioning what added value they had contributed. In fact, both had made a positive contribution, conscious (or even unconscious!) use of silence. That also fails to acknowledge the other significant contribution made by the coaches – laying strong and resilient foundations for the coaching relationship through careful, bespoke contracting, which built rapport and trust with each client which was evidenced by the client feeling confident enough, and comfortable with the use of silence by the coach, to disclose information and innermost thoughts.

This led me to reflect on the use of silence in relation to coaching sessions and the following points occurred to me:

• The Silence of the Client – even more frightening for a coach than the Silence of the Lambs!! Here I am assuming that the client is in a “healthy” state, as Julie Starr in The Coaching Manual, describes i.e. they are able to actively and fully participate in a session. The critical factors here for me are the timing of the silence and also the context of the silence.

– Timing – when the silence occurs is interesting to reflect upon. If the silence occurs near to the start of the session (or the relationship), this could be an indication of the client “testing the water” to see if it is safe to engage. My own coaching practice is that in advance of the initial session I forward copies of my coaching agreement, my profile, code of ethics and also a “What is coaching” document. In the session I then check for understanding, and specifically always explain what confidentiality means. I also ask the client if they wish to add anything into the coaching agreement. I have found that this approach assists in quickly developing trust and rapport with the clients, as opposed to simply addressing this verbally in the first session.
If the silence persists, or if it appears later in the coaching relationship, as a coach I begin to evaluate whether the client is ready to be coached (or still engaged with the coaching intervention) and, also, whether I am the right coach for that client.
Mick Cope in The Secrets of Success in Coaching, [2010] Pearson Education Limited, states “As a coach you are there to help the client deliver value through sustainable change- not to do it for them. But this leads to the question: do they want to change, or like so many people who try to change, do they just want to want to? In essence, you need to identify those who can and want to change, as opposed to those who won’t or can’t.”
Cope then outlines what I refer to as The 5 P tool, which describes five category of client, in a descending scale: Players, Participants, Passengers, Prisoners and Protestors. If dealing with a Prisoner or Protestor do not forget to consider your own interests as the coach- do you really want to coach the person? What is the risk that this could pose to your reputation or your practice? What countermeasures can you take to minimise the risk?
– Context – reflect on when the silence occurs – what preceded it? Is the silence evidence of the client reflecting? There may be clues from the position of the client’s eyes or from other body language. Alternatively, is the silence evidence of disengagement or avoidance. Watch out for mounting that white charger and going into rescuer mode! Some clients can use silence to avoid addressing the issue. One of the skills that you will quickly develop as your coaching experience grows is knowing when to break that silence.
Reflect on what your practice is when faced with a silent client? Is this an area for improvement – is it part of your coach continuous development plan? Is it one of the elements you focus upon in as part of your reflective practice.

• Boundary Management – once again the focus here is the silent client. Silence could be an early indicator for you as the coach that the client may need a different type of intervention other than coaching – for example counselling or therapy. Is there still a genuine, mutually engaged and active, coaching relationship? Once again the timing and context are critical factors, as will be the client’s behaviour, actions and emotional state. Consider your own coaching practice – have you planned for this arising? How will you deal with this? Have you identified referral points of contact?

• Contracting – How do you prepare your clients for the use of silence? One of the things I have realised on reflecting on my own coaching practice is that I ensure that each coaching agreement is bespoke to each client by specifically asking them about any particular preferences – for example, learning styles, and highlight that silence will be one of the tools that I will be using and seeking their permission/consent to this. This means that they do not start to be distracted by the silence, wondering what is going on etc. My experience has been that this has led to faster engagement and has reinforced trust and rapport.

• Self-Management – as a coach, your ability to use and manage silence is a good indicator as to your ability to manage your “self” as a coach. Resist the urge to jump in or interrupt – that could distract your client’s thought process, or, it could reduce the impact of a powerful question that you asked – the one that would have provoked a “aha” or lightbulb moment! By breaking the silence, you let the client off the hook of having to answer that question. Reflect on your own coaching practice – are you more aligned to a Trappist monk approach (honouring the silence) or a Ski- Jumper (leaping in)?

• Questioning – to quote Ronan Keating (I NEVER envisaged the day when I would use that phrase!!) “You say it best, when you say nothing at all”. OK, stop singing now, I apologize for creating that Earworm! Silence can be a powerful form of questioning – but beware that you make sure that it does not enter the realm of confrontation or oppression. Silence is a good response when the client responds to your question by asking “What do you think?” If the client is silent – that is often a prompt for questions to explore what was going on and what they were thinking of.

• Challenge – similar to questioning, the use of silence can be a form of challenge to the client – prompting the client to reflect or evaluate what they have said or thought. Again, be careful as to how silence is used and avoid it becoming oppressive or confrontational.

• Duration – the reason why silence is so powerful is that we have a natural human instinct to interact with others and it can feel very uncomfortable breaking those societal norms by using silence. There is no golden rule as to how long an “appropriate” silence should last – each client and each situation is different. One of the key skills that I have always seen develop as coaches gain more experience, is that they become more comfortable in handling silence and the duration of those silences increases as their experience increases. Reflect on your practice – do you allow the silence to be used to maximum effect? Is this something that could be improved upon? Have you tried timing a minute’s silence – how did it feel? Longer or shorter than you imagined? Comfortable or uncomfortable?

• Evidence of ethical and professional coaching – my approach when asked if I am coaching a particular individual (or team) or when asked to disclose additional information beyond that contracted with the client (and sponsor) can be best depicted by the following image.

Silence is not simply desirable in these situations, it is critical. The wartime slogan was “Loose Lips Cost Lives”, as a coach our slogan should perhaps be: “Loose Lips Costs Clients and Your Reputation”.

• Critical Review/Reflection – Finally, as a coach, critical review/reflection is an essential skill that you will need to develop to ensure your own continuous professional development. The use of a short period of silence after a coaching session is a useful practice to develop as this enables you to capture key highlights from the session and also serves to “ground” yourself as preparation for the next client.

Finally, how could I deal with the topic of silence without quoting from Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence”. Silence in coaching is “People talking without speaking”.