6 Ways to Turn Judgment into Compassion

Do you find yourself moving into judgment quickly and easily when working with your clients or team, which can have an adverse impact on your results?

Do you sometimes think they are off the track with their decisions and actions and find you want to give them advice?

Do you find some time you are judging yourself: stopping you from being the best coach you can be?

And if you said yes to some of these questions, are you asking yourself how can I remove or 'park' my own judgment about my client so I can serve them the best way possible? And how can I be better at being fully present with who I am working with, leaving my own judgments outside of the coaching space? And how can I trust my client even more - believing they are capable of achieving what they say they want?

In the coaching partnership, when we bring our inaccurate or ill informed judgment into the conversation, it can cause the breakdown of trust and rapport between parties. And it can turn into an advice giving session. This means we are no longer coaching and empowering the person we work with.

What is judgment? Particularly when it doesn't serve us or the people we are working or interacting with. It means assessing or summing up a person or a situation or both, and it places limits on a person, which may or may not be true. And we may not see our client in an expansive, creative, compassionate, resourceful way. Our role as coaches and leaders is to open up our client’s world.

As coaches and leaders who coach, we will potentially work with people from all walks of life and from many different backgrounds and cultures. And as coaches, we are of course human beings, and that means there is no doubt we will make judgments. That's what we are all wired to do - it keeps us alive!

To serve our clients and/or team the best we can, we must trust the people we work with, believing they possess the answers to their own questions deep down: that they are truly the experts in their own life. And once the client strips away the layers of limiting beliefs through powerful coaching questions - creating new awareness and new perspectives - they become incredibly resourceful and creative to find their way.

How can we move from judging to a place of openness and curiosity?

• Be present with your client: focus fully on your client and trusting they know their own truth and way forward.
• Get curious: what words are they using, what do they mean, what is underneath these words, what is their body language saying and what are they not saying.
• Come from a place of love: look at the person you are working with from a place of compassion and empathy versus sympathy or distrust.
• Support your clients to view their goals with an ecological framework: is it good for them, good for others in their world and good for the greater good.
• Trust your client: ask questions and acknowledge your client to signal to them that they truly know their own way forward.
• And, if you find yourself in judgment, practice self-compassion and be gentle with yourself: you are human after all. 

Practice these tips and become aware of how your client’s awareness grows and expands creating powerful outcomes.

Listen to Empower World's Coaching and Leadership Podcast Episode-92 where Jeanine and Marie discuss, how we can overcome judgement that doesn't serve us or our clients.

Episode-92 can be found here, Direct link: http://bit.ly/2r45gaD‪ #itunes: http://apple.co/1Hq8OmN or ‪#stitcher: http://goo.gl/WeKFCw.

Be Empowered.