Coaching Tip: Self-Efficacy - The Key to Client Confidence
Category: Coaching Secrets (CS63)
Originally Submitted on 2/14/99.
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Introduction
Self-efficacy is a term used to describe the picture we have of our ability to succeed, usually at a particular task or in a specific situation. It is similar to self-confidence, but is even more closely related to one's own personal abilities than is self-confidence, which can be based on things others than ability. Lack of self-efficacy is likely to prevent an individual from even attempting to reach a goal, no matter how much it may be desired. One of the tasks of a coach is to enhance a client's self-efficacy without boosting it beyond reality and so setting the client up for further failure.
The Coaching Tip
Researchers tell us there are four basic ways in which a person's self-efficacy is most likely to be enhanced. The most powerful and obvious one is to experience success. This is particularly important for clients with little confidence in their own ability. It is for this reason that we encourage such clients to take on relatively small and simple goals at first. This way they can experience themselves as successful, and so enhance their self-efficacy. They are then able to tackle larger tasks.
A second form of self-efficacy enhancement is modeling. If we see someone else with whom we have good rapport who is succeeding, or has succeeded, at a task, and we see that what they did to succeed is not extremely difficult, then we may decide, 'Oh, I can do that!' This is one of the many reasons why Coach University puts so much emphasis on coaches 'walking the walk' as well as talking the talk. Every client is looking for a model to emulate, someone who has been there, and done that, and therefore demonstrates that it can be done.
The third technique that coaches use on a regular basis is verbal persuasion. Not that we would use persuasion to get a client to do something against their values, but persuasion in the form of encouragement, and to talk them through their insecurities. Coaches can often see a client's strengths far more clearly than the client, and must find ways to convey what they see in a way that is convincing enough to overcome the client's self-doubt.
Lastly, emotional arousal may enhance determination so that the individual is spurred to action with such energy that they overcome their belief that they cannot succeed. We occasionally read of situations where an individual has found the enormous strength to shift a car or other heavy weight that is crushing someone, fueled by the desperation of the situation and most certainly not by their belief, had they stopped to think of it, that they could succeed. The last example is the least likely to be used by a coach. However, it may occasionally happen that a client may become excited enough for this to happen. Unfortunately it more often occurs with negative emotions such as fear and anger, which would not normally be desirable for a coach to use.
However, the other three belong in every coach's repertoire. Helping a client to break an apparently unachievable goal into smaller and more easily attained steps, modeling efficacy in such a way that the client is encouraged, not belittled, and persuading the client that s/he is more competent that s/he believes are all useful tools in the coaching tool-kit.
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About the Submitter
This piece was originally submitted by Diana Robinson, Ph.D., Personal & Career Coach, who can be reached at Diana@ChoiceCoach.com, or visited on the web. Diana Robinson wants you to know: Allow me to gift you with a half-hour free coaching session. I also offer two free e-mail newsletters, one on tools for evoluting and one on spirituality. The original source is: Graduate work in Social Psychology.
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