Team Coaching and trust
Reflections on Team Coaching and Trust
Frances White, APECS Board member and Accredited Master Coach
This month I have been working with a leadership team in a very complex and fractured environment with all sorts of complexity, pressures and difficulties. Suffice to say, it is tough, not just for them but for everyone in the system. Including me - something I am mindful to take to supervision, since it is easy to be caught up in aspects of the work, especially "judging" what and who is right or wrong.
There are many threads to the narrative, but today I was reflecting on trust in this team, which is doing its work in what they repeatedly describe as a very "unsafe" environment. In fact, this week the CEO was "removed from post", which has generated a new trail of uncomfortable emotional fallout - anger, disbelief, outrage and, of course, fear. There is also an outpouring of loyalty and expression of appreciation and love for the individual.
In other work for other teams, who also describe feeling "unsafe", there has been the opposite pattern - despite complaints and grievances, nobody leaves, the rage, disappointment, fear and betrayal sits simmering in the system. They each harbour grudges and pain, unwilling to let it go, lest it triggers further collapse of "standards". It is so hard, as a team coach, to support even the smallest beginnings of letting go, forgiveness, healing ... for now we are happy with very tiny steps and my fellow team coach and I are holding the space as best we can, owning our moments of failure in that, apologising, raising awareness - this is how it goes.
As a team coach, sometimes that is all you can do - I think owning that with them has made them feel a tiny bit more on solid ground. Whereas tempting though it may be to offer "transformation", "psychological safety" and so on, that may take time - and failure but willingness to try is what we have in the meantime.
The question then for us as coaches is - can we trust ourselves enough to model trust, to own our failures, to show up as we are, to name our feelings? If we can, I think that may be a pathway to supporting the growth of trust for and with our clients.