“Good judgment,” Mark Twain once wrote, “is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgment.” Good judgment, it seems, is a long-term outgrowth of misjudgment.
In over two decades as an executive coach — first as an internal executive coach at Accenture, a $35 billion management consulting company and now as a designer of leadership development programs — I’ve learned that the single biggest blockage to helping a coachee progress isn’t the coachee, but my own negative judgement about him or her. When I’m listening to a coachee and my internal dialogue starts rendering judgments like, “Well that was a stupid thing to do” or “Quit bellyaching and get on with it already,” I subconsciously harm the potential progress the coachee could make through the coaching process.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that the coach and coachee relationship needs to be an entirely judgment-free zone. Often, effective coaching results from holding the metaphorical mirror up to the coachee so he or she can witness the impact of their words or deeds and take ownership of making appropriate behavioral changes.
What I am suggesting, though, is that there are two kinds of judgment: one that holds a coachee in contempt (bad judgment), and one that discerns the behaviors that run counter to the values that the coachee claims are important (good judgment). The goal of the coach shouldn’t be to punish a coachee for errant behavior like a strict parent. It should be to draw out the values and better behaviors that the coachee knows deep down they should embody. Your highest responsibility as a coach is to be a supportive advocate, someone who is truly on the coachee’s side. They need to know you are with them on their journey, not above them directing them where to go.
The coaching relationship is only as strong as the degree of trust between the coach and coachee, and trust is an outcome of shared truth. When a coach gets judgy, a coachee can sense it right away, and it will shut down their willingness to share their truth. Speaking from my own experience having coached hundreds of executives over thousands of hours, I can tell you that the more judgmental you are, the more ineffective you’ll be as a coach. People don’t change by having a finger wagged in their face. Think about how this works in your own life. Who do you trust more, a caring person who listens to you and allows you to be your most authentic self, or someone who piously holds you in contempt?
With the benefit of two decades of coaching hindsight, I see now that the times when my coachee made little to no progress were most often when I had strong negative feelings about the coachee or their behavior, regardless of how concealed I believed I had kept those feelings. But the times when the coachee drew the most value from the coaching relationship were those when I listened in an in-depth and neutral way and genuinely cared about the coachee. The greatest honor I can be paid as a coach is when a coachee entrusts me with their most challenging truths.
When you, as coach, release your judgments about your coachee, you help create a sacred space where the coachee can courageously reveal what’s going on for them. When you listen without judgment and like an ally, your coachee will let you (and themselves) hear their truth. When that happens, they’ll be able to see themselves more honestly, and their conscience will direct them toward decisions and actions that are more congruent with their values. Now you and the coachee are on a higher plane, where you and the coachee can see his or her better-self potential with more clarity.
How do you keep yourself from becoming judgmental? By keeping your own conscience polished and remembering your own imperfections and flaws. By thinking about advocates who supported you along the way and who made a difference in your life and career just by being there for and with you. By remembering that careers are journeys, not sprints, full of detours and roadblocks and exit ramps. By staying present when the petty birds of judgment start chirping for attention. And by caring, deeply and genuinely, for the people you are privileged to be coaching.
