So many hats!
I’ve got a lot of hats in my life
I’ve got so many hats, among them wide-brimmed hats to protect me from the sun, party hats to be festive, bike helmets for protection, visors to show team support, play hats for costume time with my kiddo, and winter beanies to keep my head warm. Each is so useful when it is used for its proper purpose.
Likewise, I have many professional hats — among them coach, supervisor, mentor/trainer, facilitator, and colleague. The hat I wear the most is COACH — it’s the most robust approach I’ve got, but I often need to educate my clients (and colleagues) on what’s different about coaching compared to the other hats. I place deep value in their awareness, because coaching is the disposition that most honors the innate wisdom of the team, and sometimes they need a little reminder that the solutions are coming from THEM.
Just like if I walked in the room wearing my kiddo’s fire-fighter’s hat, my clients would awkward if I started using the wrong professional hat, however unlike my “real” hats, my clients can’t see which hat I’m wearing. So I tell them. And deeper than that, I do a serious gut check on how I’m showing up, as if I am looking in the mirror at myself
So what’s the difference between coaching and all my other hats?
Let’s focus on just a few of them to draw out the distinction:
- Consulting: your goal is to receive and apply knowledge, but the narrative here is that I know what to give you, and my knowledge matters most.
- Mentoring: your goal is to learn from, and integrate that yourself, but my knowledge is still the leading factor in our interaction. (Training is aligned with this modality.)
In both training and mentoring, I hold power in that relationship (even when I choose to cede it to you).
- Coaching: you hold the knowledge and power, and I aim to light that up.
The diagram below gives a lot more detail here — and while we could fine-tune the details here, know that ultimately we are talking about lighting up our client’s expertise and wisdom.
Why power matters
As a white coach working in the social sector, I spend a lot of time reflecting on and noticing the power on teams — and the impact of my engagement with teams.
Systemic racism shows up all the time, and I don’t have the lived experience to bring that wisdom to teams in the way that the teams themselves do. What I can do is notice with the team its overall health, and how to help the team find language and muscle to talk through what is happening with the team. (I also actively seek BIPOC partners to support my clients so that everyone in the room feels empowered — representation matters.)
Coaching is the best stance I can offer to help teams bring forth their best selves, leveraging their internal wisdom. As a “recovering” nonprofit program evaluation consultant, I’d watch my knowledge fall to the floor time after time because the team fiber wasn’t strong enough to hold not just the knowledge, but also the crossing-the-edge behavior changes it would need to make to become the kind of organization that could make use of the findings.
And even more crucial: when my clients know and ask for the kind of support they need, and I show up with the right hat on, we all feel stronger and more able to dig deep and do great work.
