Global Action Plan International

Principles of empowerment
The role of an empowering coach is to help people to

• Understand the context for their actions
• Define their own goals, explore what is possible, find opportunities
• Formulate their intention to change - and the help they need
• See the results of changes they make
• Focus on what is or might be possible: solutions rather than problems

As a coach, you are a midwife of individual and group knowledge /wisdom. You need to be engaged in your own journey of self-empowerment. This is how you understand the needs of others.

Your first task with a person or group is to build and maintain a safe space in which the person or people you are coaching feel able to ask for and give mutual support. Your major tools are:

• Trust in the wisdom of the process
• Ability to ‘park' your own concerns and beliefs, particularly your judgements
• A willingness and ability to respectfully interrupt aggression or negative criticism, and turn the energy behind it to constructive use

The second task concerns how you listen, and how you respond to what you hear:

• Listen attentively and with respect
• Let the speaker see you hear and understand them
• 0f it seems they are stuck in a problem, don't try to solve it! - ask whether they in fact see any possibility for action
• If appropriate, recall for them the power of their own vision, positive experiences, hopes

To do this successfully, you need to be on the alert for your own problems and fears. Recognizing them can help you to empathize with the other; not recognizing them can interfere with your communication.

The third task is connected with how you speak: with your own willingness to hold a solution focus and to speak from the heart.

• Ask questions!
• Be yourself". Acknowledge your emotional responses to what happens, and practice parking: stay with the process.
• When you need to bring up a tricky question: take a deep breath and say what you're feeling. Use "I" and "me" statements – not "you".
• And remember to keep returning to a focus on solutions – not problems.

The fourth element is the insight that all of this is much easier to say than to do. Give yourself a pat on the back when it goes well, and without blaming yourself when you realize it didn't go so well. More important is the ability to notice whether you're doing well or not, and thus to learn from your own experience – see the Essenes' principle of ‘abilii'.