Presence is Absence

Effective coaching is a powerful psychological relationship between an

incongruent and disempowered client, and an empathetic and unconditionally
positive coach, whose authenticity and congruence partners the client to
desired outcomes.
Adapted from Carl Rogers

ICF defines Coaching competency 4.Coaching Presence as the

Ability to be fully conscious and create spontaneous relationship with the

client, employing a style that is open, flexible and confident, and
 Being fully present and flexible with the client, “dancing in the moment.”
 Being curious, trusting your gut, experimenting, using humor.

The key words here are spontaneity and curiosity, being real and congruent
as a coach, dancing with the client in mutual comfort as an equal partner in
step.

Presence is possibly the most important of all the competencies in displaying

mastery in coaching and yet the most difficult to define with any certainty.
Trust and empathy as we saw earlier, create unconditional positive regard,
helps initiate a climate of confidence in the client. Partnering presence allows
the coach to expand and provide space to the client to express freely in
vulnerability and trust.

Coach needs to follow these guidelines to establish the partnering presence in

a coaching conversation.

Coach acts in response to both the whole person of the client and what the
client wants to accomplish in the session. The whole person refers to how the
client reacts, reflects and responds to the situation and system around within
the mental framework. Exploration in this area requires needs to go deeper
than asking transactional questions about what is happening in a given
situation. Coach would need to inquire and explore into the mind of the client,
sensations, emotions, energy a swell as thoughts, allowing client to reflect by
asking evocative questions. In coaching parlance such questions are called
‘WHO’ questions about the inner workings of the mind of the client rather than
‘WHAT’ questions about the situation.

The ‘who’ and ‘what’ are based on the intent of the coach and how the inquiry
lands on the client; a ‘who’ question may start with ‘what’, and the other way
around.

As a general guideline all questions need to be focused on the internal mental

framework of the client. Solution to any situation client faces would lie in how
the client reframes the situation in the mind, which in turn would help change
the client reference to the situation. In most cases, the reframing of the mind
would involve reviewing beliefs that condition the client to limiting lenses.
In order to inquire evocatively into the mind of the client, Coach needs to be
observant, empathetic, curious and responsive, noticing, sharing and
exploring somatic, emotional and energy shifts in the client.

The key attribute to create a sense of presence in coaching conversations is

the non-judgmental mind frame of the coach. At one level, coach must be
congruent to own self, in sensations, emotions and thoughts. These may be
triggered by issues that client may raise not in alignment with coach’s beliefs
and experiences. Coach must be a witness to what arises within without being
influenced to form opinions and judgment about the client and what the client
is doing and should do.

In simple terms ego and judgment would be absent when there is Presence.
Absence does not a negative connotation here as in Otto Scharmer’s Theory
U. In fact absensing from the ego system leads to presensing in the eco
system.

In this context, coaching presence may seem different from executive

presence, in which space there is great demand for coaching inputs. In reality,
a leader with executive presence would exude charisma and confidence as
well as vulnerability and humility with a view to serving all those who follow.

Coacharya labels presence as the quality of mindlessness. In the mindless

state, the highest state of aware consciousness possible to attain, the coach
is merely a witness and not an actor. The coach’s responsibility is to playback
to the client both what is heard from the client somatically, emotionally and
cognitively, and also share with no judgment the sensations, emotions, and
thoughts that arise within the coach. At this level of mindless mastery the
coach is the generative, unconditional positive regard state of congruence
with the client.

This sharing of what is perceived and what is experienced leads to a

partnered dance. In this state of partnering, the coach

 supports the client to choose what happens in the session freely,

responding in any way to the coach’s contributions accepting the
client’s response,
 invites the client by playing back the client’s expressed possibilities for
the client to choose from and
 encourages the client to formulate own learning.

Allowing the client to choose the way the process of coaching unfolds offering
possible pathways that client can think of and others coach can offer, to
accept with humility as a learner what the client has to teach, and to provide
the space for client to grow, learn and move into the desired future state
would be a powerful partnering presence.
The simplest way for a coach to create Presence would be to listen
generatively, not merely actively, in terms of where client wishes to go, the
client’s emerging future. What does the client feel about this, and the gap
between reality and the desired future? In words articulated, and expressed
as feeling and experienced as body sensations unarticulated in words, client
would be communicating if only the coach listens well.

At the first level, coach should express what is noticed acknowledging the
vulnerability of the client and the desire to move forward. At the next level
coach needs to express own sensations, feelings and thoughts that arise
within listening to the client, without adding judgmental bias. Finally, coach
should inquire curiously, not knowing, and willing to be challenged, what is
happening within the client, and how the client wishes to move ahead.

Practice this till you master.