The first thing that a flight crew will do before takeoff is a safety demonstration. “Your safety is our priority, please pay attention to the following demonstration”. After a coaching contract is established (ie passengers have taken their assigned seats), it is time to cultivate trust and safety.
I believe that trust can only be earned over time. Based on a first impression, a coachee may place a level of trust on a coach (perhaps because a coach embodies a coaching mindset?). But over time, this trust needs to be built upon to ensure the effectiveness and success of a coaching engagement.
Establishing trust is akin to setting up guardrails on a road so that our coachee has the confidence to drive to new destinations in an unknown country with us navigating by their side. Let’s examine what can strengthen this confidence.
Ways to strengthen trust
- Clear communications – we saw a video during the webtorial where a person was told to place trust on his team members that they would catch him when he fell blindfolded. To our horror, we found that the person fell forward instead of backward where his team members were ready to catch him. As a coach, we need to communicate very clearly to our coachee so that there is no ambiguity or misinterpretation in what we tell them.
- Consistent behaviour and actions – when we act, speak and behave consistently every time, not only to one coachee, but to all the people we coach, we become predictable and more trustworthy. Every time we contradict ourselves, a layer of trust is eroded. On the contrary, a layer of trust is added every time we act consistently and predictably.
- Respect the coachee’s talents and insights – when we show respect towards the coachee, we demonstrate due regard to their feelings, wishes and opinions. This builds a safe environment where our coachee is emboldened to explore their inner potentials, and feels safe to fail.
- Adapts to our coachee’s style, perception and language – we tend to place trust on people who are similar to us. Our coachee is more likely to trust us if we align with their style and perception, and speak their language
The coaching journey will end if the coachee does not have confidence in us as their trusted partner to go on this journey together.
