Taking Responsibility
Responsibility is a strong and emotionally charged concept. For some people it conjures up negative associations whilst others perceive it more positively:
· Being answerable
· Accountability · Liability · Culpability · Blame · Onus · Burden · Pledge · Constraint · Duty · Guilt |
· Reliability
· Trustworthiness · Trustiness · Dependability · Loyalty · Faithfulness · Capability · Capacity · Competence · Uprightness · Honesty |
To engage clients in developing their own solutions and action plans, coaches need to ensure clients take responsibility and accountability for their actions and performance.
Coaching is about helping people to take responsibility and to feel empowered. From a coaching perspective, it is helpful to think of the concept of responsibility as ‘the ability to respond’.
Ability to Respond
Coaches help clients to develop the ‘ability to respond’ by helping them to understand and develop their ‘model of the world’, providing new knowledge and helping clients to develop new insights and understanding. Coaches can use a variety of tools and techniques to facilitate this and help client to develop their ‘ability to respond’.
One of the keys to empowering clients and developing a client’s ‘ability to respond’ is to ensure they focus on things over which they have some influence.
Circles of Influence, Concern and No Control
Covey explores the concept of, circles of influence, concern and no control. He argues that it is disempowering to focus attention on the area of ‘no direct control’. Likewise, focusing on issues that fall within an individual’s ‘circle of concern’ is also disempowering.
However, focusing on issues that fall within an individual’s ‘circle of influence’ is empowering: the more influence that is exerted, the larger the ‘circle of influence’ becomes. As an individual’s ‘circle of influence’ expands, the number of issues they can begin to influence increases. If clients focus on issues over which they have little or no direct control, they will be immobilised.
People who focus on issues within their ‘circle of concern’ or ‘circle of no control’ are disempowered, resulting in immobilisation and the use of reactive strategies. Coaches need to help clients to focus on their ‘circles of influence’, therefore resulting in the adoption of proactive, empowering strategies.
Refer to your workbook and solve Activity no.1 in the Leaning Journey 7 section.
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