I stay on track in two ways. First, I often partner with another coach for live-action team coaching work. One of us is in the lead position, and the other is in a secondary position. Two pairs of eyes see more than one. By virtue of her position, the lead coach feels more strongly the power of being pulled into the client’s anxiety. A telltale symptom is the loss of balanced backbone and heart work with the client. The second consultant enjoys a less anxious position and thus can see the system patterns more easily, notice gaps in the process, and assist the lead coach to do a thorough job and to bring her backbone and heart back into balance.

Notice that I say “by virtue of her position.” The paired coach method allows one person to function differently given different roles within the system. I have played both lead and second coach roles, sometimes in the same organization. I can feel my anxiety shift, as well as my ability to see peripherally, as I make the transition from one position to the other. I also work with colleagues who seem quite calm in the second position and then lose some of their creativity and equilibrium as they become the lead coach.

I have learned not to personalize these shifts as signs of declining competence. It is a function of my position in the system rather than a sign of my character. Observing the differences in anxiety and clarity of one’s vision according to position has been instructional, reminding me of what my clients go through when they experience the stress inherent in the leadership position.

A second way I keep my bearings is by maintaining access to my own coach when I work alone in an organization. This coach is often a colleague who knows me well and consults with me behind the scenes, either to plan for a client session ahead of time or to debrief after I’ve had a client session.

I used to think my need for a coach would diminish once I had worked with numerous clients and had many years under my belt. After twenty years and scores of clients later, my effectiveness has dramatically increased. My need to use a coach, however, has not diminished. I no longer see using a coach as a sign of incompetence but as a smart investment (thank goodness, since that is what I tell my clients!).

It remains true after all these years that the more I open myself to being coached, the more I know in my bones what my clients experience. Intellectually, I no longer see my need for a coach as a weakness, but there are still times when I get embarrassed about using a coach. It happens when I am particularly anxious about a specific client. I have learned to recognize that this embarrassment is in itself a sign of how inducted I have become in the client’s system. Turning to a colleague for coaching is the first step toward climbing out of the vortex and recovering my bearings, clarity of thinking, and sense of humor. It helps me regain the Toddler’s Mind I referred to earlier.

I mention both my need for coaching and my approaches to getting coached as encouragement to you. To the extent that you share any of my early biases against getting coaching help to become a better coach, I hope my story invites you to be more accepting of using a coach yourself.