Marie Quigley: Hello, and welcome to the Empower World Coaching and Leadership Podcast. My name's Marie Quigley, and today I am with the wonderful Janine Bailey. It's been a while since we've been together, so it's great that we're in the same time zone, in the same country, same time of year. Welcome, Janine.

Jeanine Bailey: Thank you, Marie. Yes, it is so lovely to be in this space with you, and I've changed my background picture to reflect the season that we're in when we are recording this, which is beautiful spring. It's just such a delightful time of year. I don't think I've been here so fully in the UK in spring before. Maybe that's because I've moved to my house that my husband and I purchased, and being around in this village, it's just gorgeous—beautiful blossoms, flowers, leaves, green.

Marie Quigley: I left the UK to go to the US a couple of weeks ago when it was dark and grey and no sight of green anywhere, and I've come back to a whole beautiful sight, so it's really lovely to see.

Jeanine Bailey: Yes, I think the sun has been out a lot more than usual, so things have just taken off. It's beautiful. I'm so glad we're here. Marie, we obviously caught up before we started to record this, looking at what we could bring as a topic for our session today, and something that we've both noticed through the work that we do in terms of mentoring students who are becoming coaches is that new coaches potentially cheerlead and assess what our clients bring in, what our coaching partners bring in.

So, we hear the coaches that we're mentoring having a coaching conversation. There are insights that will come in for the people that they're working with, and then the coach comes in and potentially cheerleads—so it sounds like, "That's great work! Well done! Congratulations!" Or they'll bring in what sounds like an assessment: "That sounds like a really good idea. You've got some great commitments there, well done." We do hear this quite a bit with new coaches, so we thought we'd bring this in to discuss what this potentially can mean, and what we can do differently as coaches.

Marie Quigley: Yeah, and not just new coaches. I've been mentoring some more existing, older coaches, and they've gotten into the habit of championing—overly championing and assessing their clients too. It's interesting when they hear themselves. I've done it. I do it. My clients sometimes, I'll say, "Oh, that's great," and then realize, actually, I am making an assessment, and maybe I'm colluding with them around that. Maybe I haven't really paid attention to supporting them to think around perspectives, or letting them do their own thinking about it. I've gotten caught up in their story and their excitement. Existing coaches who are moving towards MCC are also getting caught up in it. It can feel great; it can feel like a way of connecting to somebody when we encourage them. Encouraging, I think, is a very different perspective than cheerleading. Think about the American cheerleaders with their pom-poms in the air, rah-rahing and saying everything's wonderful. That's not our job as coaches to do that. We must avoid toxic positivity, I think they call it.

Jeanine Bailey: Yes, I resonate with what you're sharing, and I recall my own journey as a coach towards MCC. I had slipped into some not-so-great habits, and one of my mentors that I worked with on my journey to become an MCC reflected back how I would bring in the word "beautiful" when my coaching partners would share some insights, or the work that they had done, or the commitments they were making. He reflected that back, and one of the things that stood out to me when he shared that—which was unconscious, a real unconscious blind spot in the way that I was coaching back then—he said to me that when he was mentored, he was advised by his mentor to always bring in something that adds value. That stayed with me. It's more than just a comment or an assessment; it's bringing value through asking questions and supporting the people that we're working with to gain insights. Now, I don't use that word "beautiful" anymore—at least I hope I don't—but instead, I will potentially ask the person I'm working with, "How does that land with you?" "When you hear that, what comes up for you?" or I might use myself as an instrument and share what I'm experiencing, and then I'll hand it back to them and ask, "What are you experiencing?" So, those are just some of the ways that we, as coaches, can when we notice that cheerleader within us, as to what we can do differently. I know that there are many more things that we can do, so I'm going to hand over to you, Marie, to share.

Marie Quigley: Well, I'm thinking I probably still do acknowledge—and acknowledgement and championing are two different things. Let's clear that up first. I might acknowledge what I'm experiencing of the client. Maybe they're sharing what they've completed, or some of the learnings they're starting to become aware about themselves. I might say, "You're brave" or "You're inspiring," which is a very different thing than saying, "Wow, that's incredible." I do still get caught up. I might think that someone has done something quite wonderful, and I might say, "That sounds wonderful." That perhaps is championing. It's a sensitivity of relationship, I think. We are in a relationship with this other person. We want it to be a real conversation, and we want to bring ourselves fully into the work, so our habits of speaking come along with us. So I might find myself saying "It's wonderful." I've got to check in with myself: is it useful? As your mentor asked you, is it useful to the conversation? Sometimes it is useful, that reflecting back what you're experiencing. And sometimes it isn't. The "wows" and the "oh my gosh, that's incredible" are perhaps ways of avoiding looking at the other side of things, maybe agreeing with the client far too much. So we've got to be aware of things like that.

Jeanine Bailey: Yes, it's having that meta perspective, isn't it—is this serving the person I'm working with, or, as you say, is it colluding? And we've always shared, Marie, in our training, that there is a time and a place for that championing, particularly when our coaching partners are perhaps going through something very difficult, very emotional, and perhaps faltering or pushing down the emotions that they might be experiencing. So we do want to support them through those really challenging times that can come up in coaching, so that they can fully be present and lean into what's coming up in the moment, and really identify what's here, what these emotions are here for. So we might say something like, if we notice that our partner is very emotional, we might say, "You're doing really well staying with this. We know it's important. There's no rush." Something like that. So we do want to bring that in for a purpose, but as you say, Marie, it's when we over-cheerlead. I'm human too, so I will potentially also bring in things—not the word "beautiful," but I might bring something else in. When I notice that, I will potentially use myself as an instrument and share, "This is what's coming up for me, and I'm curious as to what's coming up for you," so again you hand it back to the partner to be able to reflect for themselves: what am I experiencing? It could be something completely different, or it could be something that is aligned, and then we can get curious about what that means for them and support them to get the insights.

Marie Quigley: No, not at all. I'm just thinking: I had a supervision session earlier, and I noticed tears were coming behind my eyes, and I named that in service of the supervisee. Their experience was something very different to mine. So even in the sharing of what was happening, it doesn't always match what the other person is experiencing, but it does open up room for exploration of what they're experiencing. That's the power of self as instrument. It's not about being right; it's about modeling awareness so that somebody can tap into their own wisdom.

Jeanine Bailey: Yes, by naming it, the person we're working with can try it on for themselves. They can decide to say yes or no, or it's something else, and it's all purposeful. It supports the client to work out what's happening for me, and through our questions to ask them, what does that mean for them?

Marie Quigley: And I notice I'm nodding, and I'm humming, and saying "yes" as we're thinking about this conversation. It's also being mindful of doing that in a coaching conversation, because that may also be a form of championing—when we are saying, "Yes, oh yes, yes, yes," and we're nodding, that stops us from listening. Interestingly, I can't remember which piece of research it was, but the research says when we nod profusely or we say "yes," it actually hurries the person that we're working with up. So actually staying silent and not saying anything allows them to stay in their own thinking or their own experience for a bit longer. So I'm conscious, when I'm working with somebody, that too many "yeses" are perhaps colluding, perhaps championing, but also stopping people doing their thinking.

Jeanine Bailey: It's finding that balance, isn't it, of letting them know that you're here and you're listening, but at the same time, we really want to disappear from our client's world as well. We're not there to be pleased. We're there to support them, to facilitate their journey internally to process whatever's coming up for them. So it's finding that—I'm going to say "beautiful" balance—of holding that space, that container that allows our reflective partner to go on a journey.

Marie Quigley: And I think it's also—as we're talking, I'm just flipping it around to the other side and thinking: clients may want to please us. They may want to be good clients, and they may want that positive reinforcement coming back from them, because they are bringing themselves and their seven-year-old child to every conversation. So their pattern may be to search out confirmation from the person that they're working with. That's an interesting exploration for coaching as well. So if I notice my client is wanting to please me, or they're looking for my approval, I tend to bring it up and say, "This is what I notice. What's happening for you? Is this a pattern that is coming up in your life?" And often it is, and then a deeper exploration can happen because of that. If clients are wanting to please, then the coach is also potentially wanting to please, because my seven-year-old child is in the coaching session sometimes too. So the more we are aware about our patterns and behaviour for ourselves as coaches, the more we can get curious about it with the people we're working with.

Jeanine Bailey: Yes, and that's going to great spaces and places of self-awareness—being aware of what's influencing our habits, our thoughts, our emotions, our experiences. It's a wonderful exploration. What has been coming up for me right now is the acknowledgement, which we touched on earlier. Yes, it is different from championing. It's really acknowledging the client for how they're showing up. As you said, Marie, it's different from cheerleading. It's naming the qualities that we observe as coaches with the people that we work with, which can be incredibly powerful—to be the witness of someone's humanness, and the traits that they bring, the potentially unique, authentic traits, can again be incredibly resourceful for our clients. It's not so much assessing; it's actually just naming what we notice as our clients' strengths, and what they can tap into in service of the goal that they brought in for the session.

Marie Quigley: Yeah, beautiful. And one of the most beautiful gifts that we can give to another.

Jeanine Bailey: Absolutely. Lovely. So, let's bring this conversation to a close for now. We hope, coaches, that we've provided some food for thought, that you might start paying attention to when you champion, when you don't, when you acknowledge, when you assess, and what that means for who you are as a coach, and what that means for your partnership. How would you like to close off the session, Janine?

Jeanine Bailey: Yes, thank you, Marie. Beautifully said. I will just add: when we assess, it can cut off the conversation—this has just come in, so hence bringing it in—but it can cut off that line of inquiry where there could be so much more richness there, and for the partner to take responsibility for how they experience their world, and the decisions, commitments, or whatever is coming up for them. It really does flow into the belief that our clients are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. So on that note, thank you, listeners. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your feedback, and if you feel that this podcast is valuable, please do pass it on to those that you believe could benefit from it. We'd love to hear your feedback, we'd love to hear your ideas and suggestions for future podcasts. Thank you for listening.