Shortly before Thanksgiving I celebrated my new Associate Certified Coach (ACC) Credential, through the International Coaching Federation (ICF). Thank you so much, friends and colleagues, for your support along this journey! One thing stands out after 100 hours of coaching with dozens of social impact leaders toward this credential: Not giving advice.
Meanwhile, this is not an anti-advice piece. Instead, I want to share what has moved me over the last year or so of co-creating conversations with leaders without giving advice (an ICF guardrail).
While I was growing up, my Mom started a new dinner tradition. One thing was different: no silverware. It wasn’t possible to interact in the same way. Dinner without silverware – a deliberately challenging meal of pasta and red sauce – inspired awareness, conversation and a steady stream of U16 guests.
In a similar way, the ICF parameter of ‘no advice’ has transformed my presence as a coach.
Why is ‘no advice’ a gamechanger? ‘No advice,’ far from a passive stance, facilitates an understanding of leaders in their own context. Listening for what is most meaningful to clients is a core part of my training through CoachDiversity Institute; It is my orientation to coaching as a privileged white woman. Holding space for client-defined meaning makes it possible to work across inevitable differences in lived experience.
How does ‘no advice’ accelerate leadership impact? In my experience:
1) A nonjudgmental, listening orientation in the coaching relationship accelerates trust, which makes deeper work possible. This deeper work, like aligning action with intention in new ways, drives leadership impact.
2) It’s hard to get to the client ‘why’ if you rush toward the ‘how’ with advice. Jumping to solution often short-circuits reflection, ownership, and accountability for action. Leaders are empowered when they gain new awareness of their own drivers, including mindsets and emotions.
3) As a coach, my purpose is to partner with leaders to take the broadest possible look at their choices – the choices that feel empowering to them in their own context. My experience with women executives is that competing demands (time, social expectations, allegiances, etc.) can make it difficult, at times, to identify what they want most. Leaders that tap into their own wisdom make stickier decisions that align values, voice, and vision for impact.
Along this path, I’m incredibly grateful to the leaders that have honored me with their time and trust. It is a joy to watch vision, courage, ingenuity and reinvention at work in creating new results. Thank you.
