Do we really need more empathy as coaches?

🤔 Do you *really* need more empathy to be an effective coach? 🤔

Clients need to trust the coach and to feel seen and supported.

But “more empathy” is not a universal prescription like a supplement we should all take liberally. 🥴

High levels of empathy often come with risks. Like absorbing emotions in the coaching space. We can end up worrying or even digesting emotions on our clients’ behalf. This is tiring, disempowering and ineffective for the client (and ourselves).

For some coaches, the growth opportunity is more empathy, but to develop skills that modulate our empathy, to gain some healthy detachment, set healthy boundaries, and to clear up any emotive debris that gets absorbed during sessions.

Instead of “more empathy”, seek to find a balance between:

1. Sufficient *empathy* to feel invested in our clients’ journey through the dense woods of their experience. To ensure our clients feel truly seen and that their experience is honoured.

AND

2. Sufficient *detachment* to not get personally entangled into the narrative and the suffering your client is going through, and to be able to also challenge our clients.

Close enough to care, detached enough to challenge.

We may not always achieve 100% balance between these two. That’s ok.

Which side of the balance do you tend to lean more towards?