#150 Spotting your coaching derailers: A reflective practice
Why coaches fail
This is the final post about why coaches fail. Being a great coach is about getting the balance just right between not enough and too much, the so-called Goldilocks Effect.
Coaches might underplay or overplay certain behaviours and derail the chances of successfully helping their clients reach their goals. Great coaches manage to strike a balance between these extremes and get it just right.
Today, I’ll offer some reflective questions to help you identify your coaching derailers and how to work on achieving balance in your coaching behaviours.
Spotting your coaching derailers: A reflective practice
Every coach has blind spots. It is likely that at least one or two of the 11 derailers explored in previous posts - ranging from over-compliance to emotional over-investment - show up in your practice. The key is learning to spot them in yourself before they shape your coaching relationships in unhelpful ways.
Start by reflecting on the five biggest failures in your coaching career. Capture the situation, the outcome and how you felt:
Who were your most difficult clients?
When did you feel disappointed, defeated or out of your depth?
What moments still linger in your memory with discomfort?
Once you’ve gathered these stories, ask yourself:
What behaviours didn’t serve me well?
What would these clients say about how I acted?
What themes or patterns are emerging?
Which of the 11 derailers fit this pattern?
This isn’t about self-criticism, it’s about self-awareness. You might also ask your best clients, ‘How can I be a better coach?’ Their feedback can reveal subtle habits you’ve unwittingly adopted.
To deepen the inquiry, try these exercises:
Embodied recall: Revisit one difficult session and notice your physical response. What did your body know that your mind ignored?
Derailer mapping: Create a mind map linking your stories to specific derailers. What overlaps? What surprises you?
Philosophy check: Write a short statement of your coaching philosophy. Then ask: ‘Where do I act congruently with this, and where do I act against this?’
Derailers lose their power when they’re named, and you will be more aware of them when you have tuned in to your embodied response to them and mapped them out. Bring your reflections into supervision. Don’t just share the stories, share the patterns, the questions and the discomfort. Recognising your derailers and learning to find the right balance helps you become a safer and more effective coach.
Visit https://www.growthecoach.com/free-resources to download an at-a-glance summary of all 11 coaching derailers.
