The translation of Empowerment into Spanish is ’empowerment’ and it is something fundamental that a coach must know how to transmit to his client for the coaching process to be successful.
This “empowerment” should not be confused with simple motivation, with encouragement, or with sharing positive phrases so that the coachee feels encouraged. In fact, this is one of the false beliefs that coaching has to deal with the most, that of believing that when we talk about empowering the coachee we are talking about simple motivation.
In this article we want to try to better explain how this ’empowerment’ is worked on and what it achieves in the way of approaching a coaching process.
As a starting point, it should be noted that Empowerment has two aspects: make the coachee discover and be aware of their potential and, another, make them know how to access “their center” or “be in the zone.”
Trust the customer’s potential
One of the fundamental characteristics to be a good coach is to have absolute confidence that the coachee has sufficient capabilities and potential to achieve the objective they want to achieve and for which they have requested their services.
Empowerment in this sense consists of the coach help the client eliminate all those obstacles that they are not allowing you to see the tools you have to achieve your goal: limiting beliefs, conformism, not being clear about your purpose, lack of connection with your true values…
During the coaching process, the coach works with different tools and techniques to break down these obstacles and achieve the necessary empowerment in the coachee. Two empowerment tools that prove to be very effective are:
The 5 virtues
An exercise to be aware of the positive qualities that the coachee has and that at first glance they never take into consideration. It consists of telling the client (taking into account the previous session work in which you have been able to get to know him better), ‘when you enter a room what you bring with you is…’ and list those 5 virtues that the coach has detected that the client has
The key is to make the coachee connect with them and be aware that they have them because others see them.
Connect with achievements
This tool is one of the most effective. It is to make the coachee list the different achievements he has achieved in his life, whether personal or professional. We are not talking about great achievements like finishing a university degree, but achievements such as learning to swim, getting a date with that person you wanted, facing a difficult situation successfully…
With this exercise you become aware that we achieved many things successfully throughout our lives, but we do not give them the value they really deserve.
Maintain the center or connect with the zone
This part of empowerment consists of help the client know how to access their center or area of excellence from where he finds the fulfillment and drive to address circumstances without limits.
This area that seems almost mystical is, in reality, being congruent with values. A value is that which is important to a person above all else. If we do not act according to the values, we are outside that center because we are not being and doing in congruence with ourselves and this is where doubts and fears arise.
Once the client is clear about those values that guide him in his life, he goes from the state of “have, do, be” to the state “be, do, have.” He can work from his center or access his zone because he knows what is really important to him and the objectives and actions that will be set to achieve it will be very different.
Concluding…
In short, the empowerment process is linked and united to the coaching process itself, because while the different steps of the action plan are marked, they are working, in turn, with the different empowerment tools that will give the coachee the freedom to achieve the objective successfully.
Knowing how to perform good Empowerment is key for a coach Within the training to be a professional coach, this part of client empowerment must be worked especially well because, as we have seen, it is vital for a coaching process to be successful.
In the different coaching training that we give at our school D’Arte Human Business School We treat empowerment with the seriousness and rigor that it deserves, always seeking that the coaches who leave our classrooms are high-level professionals.
