Coaches’ Corner with Elizabeth Crosse

Getting to know Elizabeth Crosse who is leading our November workshop on our ability to foster the Coaching Relationship.

1. Who or what inspired you to become a coach?
The desire to learn and educate has run through my personal and professional life. At age three I taught teddy bears, at twenty-three I taught students, at forty-three I was heading up an L and D department and introducing the concept of a coaching culture to drive organisational performance. As part of this journey I completed a Master’s degree in Counselling Psychology. This learning experience introduced me to the ideas of how a ‘person centred approach’ could create the environment for a client to explore their thoughts and feelings.

2. What is your favourite thing about being a coach?
As a scientist I am fascinated by the concept of the catalyst. Little molecules increase the rate of a chemical reaction which results a permanent change. Often these reactions could occur by themselves but would either take longer or need some energy. This idea has become a metaphor for what I love most about coaching. I work with fully capable, resourceful, brilliant people who would probably achieve all they wanted without coaching at some point in their lives. Our coaching relationship fast tracks this process, and like a catalyst, my role is to provide the ‘activating energy’. Knowing I have played a role in enabling someone to grow and develop so they are better equipped to cope with future challenges is the most rewarding aspect of being a coach for me.

3. What is the thing you find the most challenging as a coach?
Administration! As I manage dyslexia and dyspraxia this is an issue for me. However, when I talk with other coaches, I am reassured to know I am not alone in finding the administrative side of a coaching practice challenging.

4. What’s the biggest lesson you have learnt in recent years?
My biggest learning is to truly trust the inherent value of the coaching process to create value rather than my need to perform. In supervision I have explored how I can be comfortable with being uncertain, feeling ‘stuck’ and at times incompetent. These conversations and reflections on my own practice have helped me become more accepting of ‘not knowing’ and feeling vulnerable. In doing so I noticed a shift in the depth and quality of our conversations and the coaching relationship.

5. If you could wave a magic wand and have one wish for you or your coaching practice, what would it be and why?
My wish is not personal but for the coaching practice as a profession. We often talk about delivering ‘evidence based coaching’ despite the lack of empirical research that coaching, or coaching techniques work. Currently we are over reliant on conclusions from therapeutic studies, qualitative research or anecdotal feedback from clients. If businesses and individuals are going to continue investing in coaching, they to want to know that ‘its works’. My magic wand would provide the resources and motivation for organisations and professional bodies to commission more coaching quantitative studies.

Tuesday 29 October 2019 (scheduled slightly later in the month to avoid half term) (18:15-20:00)
"Enhancing our Ability to Foster the Coaching Relationship" with Elizabeth Crosse
Book Here for Elizabeth Crosse