We are pleased to share an article entitled “Towards Freedom & Healing ~ Six keys to coaching across color lines“ written by Susana Rinderle.
Sascha is a seasoned coach I met years ago when we were both new to the profession. Our relationship evolved from practice peers to mentor/mentee to friends, so I was surprised to see her urgent appointment on my calendar.
“I think I need coaching supervision,” she wrote. “I have a new client who’s a Black female recently promoted to a senior leadership role. I want to be the best coach possible for her and need a sounding board. So I thought of you.”
I was thrilled by Sascha’s commitment to her client. If only more coaches sought support when coaching across color lines! This is essential, because most “coaching across color lines” involves white people like Sascha coaching BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) clients. And many well-intentioned white coaches end up propping up oppression or causing outright harm.
I know this because I’ve worked with BIPOC clients who have been harmed by other coaches. I know this because I’ve been that harmful coach. And I know this because I’m not just a professional coach, but a 30-year veteran of the DEI, anti-racism and intercultural fields. In fact, my coach training was a rigorous year-long program with an anti-racist, social justice foundation and BIPOC faculty.
Through working with Sascha (not her real name), I realized that the following six keys make all the difference in coaching across color lines.
- DO YOUR PERSONAL WORK
This is priority number one. First, be all of your authentic selves, and not someone else. As a racially ambiguous, multilingual white person who has spent more of her life around BIPOC than white people, I can code-switch to connect with BIPOC clients – but this is authentic to my lived experience, not performative.
Second, commit to dismantling internalized white supremacy. Examine your motives and attitudes about coaching across color lines. BIPOC clients don’t need a white person to save or fix them, nor are they there to educate you. Third, develop genuine confidence – expand your capacity to trust yourself, take risks, make mistakes and recover.
Coaching across color lines is not about walking on eggshells, overly deferring to or caretaking your client, or beating yourself up for missteps. As in all healthy relationships there will be ruptures, so we must get skilled at repair.
2. GAIN FLUENCY IN THE LANGUAGE, CONCEPTS & HISTORY OF RACE & POWER
This isn’t political correctness, it’s competence, and being a political liberal is not required.
Examine and resolve parts of you that are squeamish about words like white, Black, BIPOC, POC, racism, racist, white supremacy, white privilege and oppressed. Learn what these words mean and why they matter. Notice and resolve any internal resistance to accepting how reality works for BIPOC.
This requires doing “personal work” and educating yourself – but not leaning on BIPOC to do the educating. Conduct internet searches, talk to white antiracists, follow thought leaders on social media, and read Caste by Isabel Wilkerson and My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem. Learn about how power works on both micro (interpersonal) and macro (systemic, institutional) levels.
My fluency in race and power has not only built trust with BIPOC clients – their shoulders and faces visibly relax – but sufficient safety for their candor and full expression. It allows emotional and intellectual shortcuts, deeper listening and more creative problem solving because my client is relieved of the burden of translating, carrying me or wondering where I stand.
3. BECOME TRAUMA-INFORMED
Being trauma-informed is a coaching must-have (see my earlier article in choice V21N2), but especially so for working with BIPOC clients because racism causes trauma that we mustn’t exacerbate.
Avoid the subtle ways coaches unconsciously coerce and dominate clients. Learn about the debilitating (yet adaptive) “appeasement” stress response common in organizations and marginalized people like BIPOC. If you pursue training in trauma-informed coaching, ensure it covers appeasement in depth (“fawn” is a subset) and includes a socioecological framework for stress and trauma.
Validate the wisdom of the client’s appeasing behaviors, disrupt shame, and invite them to explore ways to appease more consciously.
I recently coached a Latina leader to reflect on how habitual deferring had served her in the past, how it served her now, and what the consequences might be if she tried other approaches. She realized deferring was a necessary protective behavior instilled by her abusive family of origin and workplaces where she was an undervalued “only.” Feeling less guilty, she was able to experiment with choosing when to defer, and with speaking up.
4. SHOW EMOTIONS
Showing emotion builds trust with BIPOC clients because overly controlled affect is one reason BIPOC mistrust whites. Allowing a client’s story to impact you is validating, connecting, and shows caring. (When I gently challenged Sascha’s resistance about this, she said, “Honestly, I would want a coach who cares about me that way!”)
White coaches must be mindful about showing emotions – there is a long history of “white tears” (especially white women’s tears) being used to manipulate feelings, hijack attention and justify violence. But showing emotion doesn’t automatically shift focus from client to coach.
My emotional reactions – compassionate face, tearful eyes, horrified expression, angry voice – have supported dozens of my BIPOC clients to feel heard, seen and deserving of their own honest reactions, which then unlocked new insights and possibilities.
Breakthroughs are supported by healthy attachment, not emotional detachment. In fact, welcoming emotions in coaching disrupts the fragmented, disembodied, dehumanizing underpinnings of white supremacy.
5. BELIEVE THE CLIENT & VALIDATE THEIR REALITY
It’s not that racism, discrimination or abuse “might” happen to BIPOC clients – it does and it has. Avoid talking the client out of the possibility that they’re experiencing race-based mistreatment. To do so is not only naïve, it’s disempowering.
Encouraging a BIPOC client to deny their feelings or ignore reality impedes their success. The existence of racism isn’t a “limiting belief” that BIPOC clients can just “positive mindset” their way out of. To suggest otherwise is one way white coaches bypass, gaslight and impose their own agenda onto the BIPOC client – because the coach was triggered.
Also avoid perpetuating the notion that BIPOC clients have “impostor syndrome.” There’s nothing inherently wrong with BIPOC – their nervous systems have intelligently adapted to the myriad ways we treat them as impostors and train them to doubt themselves.
I had a Black female client in a tech company who struggled constantly with feeling she was a horrible team lead. It wasn’t until I pointed out she was the only Black female lead in the company, and probably felt like an impostor because her colleagues treated her more coolly than the white males, that she eased off on blaming herself. Releasing self-blame allowed her to exercise more agency where she had it, seek support without feeling broken or “needy,” and hone her strengths.
6. INVITE THE CLIENT TO “CHECK THE DATA”
Trauma can cause us to disregard danger signs, but also to exaggerate them. While some BIPOC may deny racism affects them, others may see it everywhere! A coach that validates their BIPOC client’s reality creates enough safety to then invite them to analyze “the data” that led to their conclusion, without implying they’re imagining things.
What exactly did their boss or colleague say? What were the parties’ observable behaviors? What is the relationship history? Going through this process can settle the client and reconnect them with creative thinking. Then they can better discern what dangers and opportunities exist, and what action to take.
My tall, young, Black client was the only BIPOC in his corporation’s C-suite and felt constantly undermined and ostracized by his CEO and colleagues. One day, he said a colleague purposely made him look incompetent by saying he had agreed to something he hadn’t. My client was on the verge of aggressive confrontation or quitting. In “checking the data,” he realized that he wasn’t certain whether the colleague was trying to undermine him or was just misinformed. He talked with the colleague and learned it was an honest misunderstanding. Today the client remains in that company’s C-suite.
Back to my friend and mentee Sascha. After three supervision sessions, she felt better equipped to coach her client. She later reported proudly that her client transitioned successfully into the senior role and they’d created a strong rapport with laughter along the way. I marveled at the ripples extending out from them both.
I realized that these keys had supported not only the BIPOC client’s growth, but Sascha’s as well. And that’s the point of dismantling racism – freedom and healing for all.
Let’s continue the conversation by connecting with your colleagues on our Facebook page
