Coaching Tip: Nourishing What We Think We Are Not

Originally Submitted on 3/23/2000.

Introduction

While it is important that clients (and coaches) understand themselves and their behavioral tendencies, it is equally important that we not totally buy into them as 'who we are' and leave it at that.

The Coaching Tip

It is useful to understand that one is, for example, an extrovert, so that one can build this into one's mental inventory of self-understanding. However, to simply allow oneself to 'go with the flow' to the point of becoming more and more extroverted in behavior can be unwise. Extremes court disaster. Balance suggests that, while we celebrate our strong points, we also seek to incorporate their less apparent opposites into our range. The extreme extrovert may be so anxious to flee from being alone that s/he courts disaster in the search for company. The extrovert who cultivates introversion can learn to make good use of alone, down-time. The extreme introvert may come dangerously close to becoming a recluse. The introvert who cultivates extroversion can benefit from meeting others and so enjoy a widening social circle.

While I have used one dimension of personality by way of illustration, the same principle applies to most others. Both risk taking and cautiousness can be taken to extremes, as can hedonism and austerity, and many more.

The coach may need to walk a fine line between applauding what is already strong in a client, and encouraging its opposite so as to nourish the strengths that are at both ends of a dimension. That way lies progress towards greater balance.

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