Psychological Literacy for Coaches

By: Dr. S. Sabesan

Executive Coaches are almost always expected to help their clients achieve a certain level of sustainable behavioural change in their Organisational roles and contexts. At the same time, sponsors and clients also want their Coaches to bring to the table a strong systems perspective – the benefit of having been there and done that.

What this really means is that while Executive Coaches may have a strong Business or Executive background and good Coaching skills and may bring a strong systems perspective, they may still have huge challenges in dealing with the personal-psychological issues of their clients that lie around and below the iceberg. They may also have difficulties in accurately describing or labelling their clients behaviours or emotions.

Likewise, managers at the workplace who are expected to be Coaching-oriented in their style of leadership may also grapple with difficulties in understanding the psychological underpinnings of their employees’ behaviour. They also appear to experience difficulties in succinctly capturing and describing the emotions and behaviours of their employees using the right family of terms or may have difficulty in understanding basic psychological processes and behaviours to aid their Coaching relationship with their team members.

In both cases, it would help if the Coaches have a working knowledge of the basic concepts of psychology or are familiar with the basic language of human behaviour. This is what we call Psychological Literacy - one of the frequently overlooked dimensions of Coaching effectiveness.

Being psychologically minded or literate is very central to CFI’s Coaching Model and to that end we spend a lot of time and effort to impart this to our prospective CEO Coaches, Leadership Development Coaches as well as our certified Coaches. In this article, I aim to explain the various facets of this Psychological Literacy.  

What does Psychological Literacy mean?

Psychological Literacy is an umbrella term used to denote a person's capacity to succinctly describe one’s own and others’ behaviour. It is rooted in an individual's curiosity about how and why people behave in a particular manner. It is also about our ability to see the past in the person’s present and make links between current issues and what has happened earlier. In essence, it is all about exploring, understanding and fluently articulating the underlying causes and meanings of one’s own as well as others' thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

How does Psychological Literacy help to understand oneself and others?

A key to maintaining the momentum of a Coaching relationship lies in the Coach’s ability to get in touch with the client’s core issues – the story behind the story. This is where a certain level of psychological literacy can help, as most of the complex Coaching issues tend to have both covert and overt psychological dimensions. Coaches who are psychologically literate recognise the patterns in their own and in their Coachee’s behaviour. Psychological Literacy not only helps them suspend judgment about their Coachee’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour but also enables them to have increased clarity in understanding the conscious and unconscious motivation that drives the behaviour of their Coachees.

What are the overarching dimensions of Psychological Literacy?

Executive Coaches, by and large, work with psychologically healthy Executives. The issues of such Executives are more to do with widening their behavioural repertoire, managing their emotional responses, developing their emotional intelligence, getting closure around unfinished issues, cultivating Executive presence and exploring what they really want from the rest of their personal and professional lives. To address these issues, Coaches need to gain proficiency in Psychological Literacy in terms of having a working knowledge and understanding of important concepts in the field of psychology. Let us now examine some of the essential elements of this Psychological Literacy.

Coaches must fully understand and appreciate the true meaning of self-awareness. They must appreciate that self-awareness is all about the conscious use of our human senses to notice and connect with what is happening in ourselves and others. They must recognise that it includes recognition of our personality, strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes. They must know that developing self-awareness can help us to realise when we are stressed or under pressure.

Coaches who understand the meaning of self-awareness will promote a greater understanding among their Coachees by asking them questions such as “What are you aware of right now ?”, “What are you thinking ?” , “What do you notice in yourself ?”, “ What do you want?” ,  “How might you get that?” and “What’s happening now?" All these questions are likely to generate more direct contact with immediate thoughts, feelings and needs in the Coachee.

Coaches also need to have an adequate knowledge about what self–concept is. They must know that self-concept refers to the organised set of characteristics that the individual perceives as peculiar to himself and that it is all about what one thinks about oneself and that this can be positive or negative. Such Coaches can detect whether their Coachee has a positive or negative self - concept during the Coaching conversations.

Coaches must also understand the meaning of self-esteem / self-regard. It refers to a person’s overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth and it encompasses beliefs ("I am competent" or "I am incompetent"), emotions (triumph, despair, pride or shame) and behaviours (assertiveness, shyness, confidence or caution). Ultimately, Coaches envision, enable, embolden and empower Coachees to have strong self - esteem through their powerful Coaching conversations.

Coaches need to understand the meaning of self-monitoring, which is to regulate one’s own behaviour based on the cues that he/she receives from others through verbal and non-verbal communication. Through this, Coaches can help Coachees develop the capacity of self – monitoring in the course of their personal and professional lives.

Coaches must understand another dimension which is self-efficacy. It is the belief that one has the capability to execute the course of action required to manage prospective situations. They must know that it is a sense of a person’s competence within a specific framework and it is based on one’s personal past experiences of mastery. The ultimate aim of the Coach is to develop self - efficacy in Coachees.

Self-motivation is the next dimension of Psychological Literacy and is described as the ability to motivate oneself, to find a reason and the necessary strength to do something, without the need of being influenced to do so by another person. The Coach strives to promote self - motivation in Coachees so that the Coachee can become a self Coach rather than Coach dependent.

Psychologically literate Coaches need to have a conceptual appreciation of one or more schools of psychology like Person-centered, Rational Emotive Behavioral approach, Gestalt and Positive Psychology. They also need to understand the connection between thinking, feeling and behaviour. Coaches must  be familiar with a broad range of  assessment tools and they must be trained to deliver at least one psychometric tool or 360 degree feedback.

Psychologically literate Coaches create an environment in which their clients can explore issues and get fresh perspectives and experiment with new modes of thinking and behaviour. They also play a proactive role in helping the Coachee understand and manage his/her emotions more effectively. They are mindful about the boundary  between Coaching and therapeutic issues and thereby make appropriate recommendations to the Coachee for availing referral services, if the issues fall within the realm of therapy or counselling.

Closing Thoughts

Executive and Business Coaches as well as managers undoubtedly require a considerable level of Psychological Literacy to help their Coachees realise their true potential. Of late, there is a growing awareness and acceptance that Psychological Literacy is one of the critical competencies that distinguish an effective Coach from an ineffective Coach.

CFI is pioneering the effort of spreading awareness on the importance of Psychological Literacy so that Coaches will be both cognitively and emotionally tuned into themselves and their Coachees. This connect will significantly promote rapport and trust resulting in the desired Coaching outcomes.

Needless to say, Psychological Literacy is equally critical as being emotionally and socially intelligent, which as you may know warrants a completely different discussion!

Dr. S. Sabesan is Director, Programs and Research at Executive and Business Coaching Foundation India Limited.