As coaches, we work hard to uphold the guiding coaching principle of “Ask, don’t tell”. For some of us, especially coming from organizational development and other consulting backgrounds, you may remember similar moments earlier in your careers – and even now – where that urge to “provide our solution” can overtake our “trust that the client is creative, resourceful, and whole” mantra.

In polarity thinking language, this is the continuous opportunity to leverage directive AND non-directive coaching. Just as our skill-centric leader clients need to shift from seeing everything as a problem with one right answer to also noticing the interdependent tensions that exist in complexity, we coaches also need to adapt our style in order to best serve the client at their action logic.

Adaptations that were required of JP’s coach to meet the Skill-centric stage included:

• Presenting an agenda with options vs leaving it completely open for him to drive
• Incorporating concrete tools to help with targeted management skills
• Use of recognized “experts” in his life and in the literature
• Tools to help him consider different perspectives
• Intentional use of polarity work to help client begin recognizing multiple perspectives and help the client shift from a problem, “either/or” orientation to a paradox, “both/and” orientation

We share here a conventional stage example as, statistically, the odds are good that you will encounter a leader coming from that level of meaning-making. This same principle and process can be leveraged at any stage, with individual leaders, their sponsors, and their teams.

What might you approach differently if your leader was among the 16% of leaders who are post-conventional? Have you ever experienced where a client seems to be on a more “stratospheric” way of thinking than you or that they feel frustrated or unheard in some way? If so, perhaps this GPS table can help you meet those leaders a bit differently moving forward.

As we’ve worked with post-conventional leaders, we’ve noted they face this experience posed above quite frequently in their interactions. Why? The systems they work in, as well as the leaders around them, are largely operating within a conventional action logic and structure.  The coaching opportunity for us in partnering with these leaders is to support them in bringing their best self to work, even if their boss or organization is coming from a predominantly conventional center of gravity.

In leveraging our GPS table, our best practice techniques with post-conventional leaders include, but are not limited to, focusing on:

• Deep exploration of purpose
• Ongoing, active solicitation of feedback
• Leveraging polarities
• Integration of body, mind, and spirit: use of somatic tools, journaling, and reflection
• Calculated risk-taking: managing up and influencing to nudge the system in adaptive ways better suited to an unpredictable world
• Leveraging team of teams: creating systems to support trust and decentralized decision-making within and among interdisciplinary teams