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Coaches can cover a lot of ground—and ask all sorts of questions—in a typical coaching session.
One moment a coach provokes and in the next moment, the coach encourages. And always, the coach explores.
Exploring the various “hats” a coach wears, suggests researcher and coach Irene Stein, can lead to a greater understanding of the coaching dynamic, and to fuller self-reflection for the coach.
As Dr. Stein writes in the September 2009 issue of Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, identifying the “hats” a coach chooses to wear at any given time—and why—can “provide the information to help individual coaches pursue mastery of their coaching process.”
“Most coaches would say that coaching is a facilitative process—the coach listens, asks questions, and contributes observations. But what do coaches really do?
Based on careful study of actual coach-client conversations, it becomes clear that coaches actually have a wide variety of hats that they can choose to wear in the course of a coach-client conversation. Which hat the coach puts on at any point of the conversation is mostly made instinctively, rather than by conscious choice, because up until now there has not been a good vocabulary to name each hat.”
Stein, who coaches doctoral students, especially those studying coaching, was a leader and founder of the ICF Coaching Research Symposium in 2003, and has been a corporate coach since 1999.
In her research article, “What Hat am I Wearing Now,” Stein suggests a list of sixteen “conversational identities” that can be used by a coach at any given moment in working with a coaching client.
“For instance, sometimes the coach wears the hat of a ‘Supporter’ and sometimes of a ‘Challenger.’ Sometimes the coach adopts a ‘Facilitator’ identity, and sometimes adopts the ‘Expert’ identity. Looking closely at actual coaching conversations shows that coaches clearly wear many hats and adopt many identities throughout a single coaching conversation.”
Stein studied the work of 21 coaches—interviewing the coaches themselves and reviewing audio recordings of actual coaching conversations—to develop a “typology of conversational identities of professional coaches,” essentially a framework for identifying the various “hats” a coach chooses to wear.
As Stein writes, “by studying one’s own conversations after the fact, a coach can analyze what choices she made and when. A coach can mark transcripts from coaching conversations in such a way that each sentence, or phrase within a sentence, can be assigned one of the conversational identities.”
Developing her “typology of conversational identities of professional coaches” was funded in part by a research grant from Fielding Graduate University. Stein hopes coaches will use the tool to grow as coaches and to make more conscious choices about which hat to wear with a client: “a coach may discover that she relies quite a bit on her own background when choosing what conversational identity to adopt,” Stein writes, urging coaches to think deeply about these choices.
“By becoming so intimately aware, a coach can thus train herself to be more conscious about the conversational identities she adopts while coaching, double checking her intuitive sense of what is needed at a particular time.”
Do you review your coaching sessions after the fact?
Do you know which “hats” you choose with your coaching clients?
Do you agree with Irene Stein that reflecting on those “hat” choices might empower your coaching?
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There are 5 Responses so far...
There are many coaching systems that incorporate some sort of framework within their coaching processes where a coach engages in the appropriate ‘role/hat’. An example is inducing ‘motivation’ to change by challenging or awakening (the role as Challenger or Awakener); provoking ‘decision’ to change by probing or provoking; actualizing ’solutions’ via the role as co-creator or facilitator/encourager/supporter of ’solutions’; testing the viability of ’solutions’ by seeking evidences and solidifying the ’solutions’; etc., etc.
So the coach can ‘dance’ between different roles/hats within a given coaching session to arrive at the purpose-driven coaching outcomes. This I see is coaching at the ‘micro-level’ where a coach could be in the role/hat as ‘Listener’, ‘Challenger’, ‘Feedbacker’, ‘Feedforwarder’, ‘Re-focuser’, ‘Pattern detector’, ‘Future pacer’, ‘Metaphorer’, ‘Reframer’, ‘Re-experiencer’, ‘Recurser’, ‘Polarity integrater’, ‘Soul retriever’, ‘Perceptual processor’, ‘Entity processor’, and the many other roles/hats (that are part and parcel of any particular coaching method/philosophy/system/school of thought/etc.) that may be required to hold and achieve the purpose-driven coaching conversation.
Another interesting approach is to coach via the ‘macro-level’, where the coach, coaches based on coaching conversation types. Examples include the ‘committment conversation’ (for example: the goal of the coaching conversation is to unblock the coachee’s lip service, and enable the coachee’s to practice authentic committment), ‘dissent conversation’, ‘possiblity conversation’, etc., etc.
So with so many ‘roles/hats’ and so many coaching conversation types available to the coach, should we hold on to only one coaching school of thought, or should we open ourselves to where the limit takes us, or is there really a limit?
Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.
Thanks for reminding me/we coaches of the flexbility and “fun” we need to be having in our sessions. Allowing and encouraging us to take off our hats, try others on is a great example to our clients. We are always encouraging them to reach outside that comfort zone, stretch a bit and see where you go. This is great advice for coaches too! I look forward to trying on some new hats and exploring!
I really like the idea of coaching hats as a way of gauging how I’m operating or the role I’m fulfilling during a session with a client. Reflecting on how a session went is something I have always done, usually nothing more sophisticated that a mind-map of how I perceived the interaction went. From now on though I will also consider the ‘hats’ I have used and see if that sheds any light on how successful the engagement is.
Mark, Thanks for pointing out my article in “Coaching.” I would be glad to chat with anyone who wants to know more about the “hats.” I gave a presentation to the ICF Research SIG a few months ago and would gladly present to other virtual venues. If others have questions, just contact me at irenestein@att.net. And I love the picture of the hat stack!
Irene
Irene, applause for this research! Everyone wears different hats each day both professionally and personally. This article brought a new awareness for me of what hats I’m wearing and why. Thanks so much!