\u201cThat\u2019s insane. Why not start another worship service within the church you are currently serving,\u201d the coach asked me. I had been going through a year of discernment, telling two churches \u201cNo, thank you\u201d after they offered for me to serve as their senior pastor, and had been approached by two other couples in the church about my willingness to meet and pray with them about starting a radically different new church. The coach assigned to me had been provided with an 18-month leadership development program. It was exactly what I needed then, but the coach\u2019s question was not a coaching question at all.<\/p>\n
Coaching is not therapy nor an advice hotline. Instead, a quality coach listens beyond your words to understand what is at the heart of what you are saying and feeling in the moment. The coach pays attention to that subtle sigh or deep breath and goes right there to find out what is behind those words.<\/p>\n
Tom Camacho, a retired military officer and professional coach, was transformed by a coaching experience that inspired a new way of approaching leaders within his context and encouraging others to do the same. \u201cFor years, I struggled with the pain and frustration of my inability to see. I saw myself through my own broken lenses. I carried a false identity, which didn\u2019t line up with God\u2019s Word and hindered my growth. I felt handcuffed to harmful mindsets and behaviors,\u201d noted Camacho.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n Mining for Gold<\/em> is a popular press book geared towards equipping leaders with a basic understanding of a coach approach to leadership and the steps to implement that knowledge. The latest iteration of professional coaching has been around for nearly 60 years, with typically an eye toward executives who could afford an outsider to talk through challenging situations and ideas. Coaching has become more commonplace and affordable over the last several decades, including among ministers. For example, when I coordinated our denomination’s church starting\/planting initiative, we required a church starter to receive three years, once per month, coaching from an appointed partner organization.<\/p>\n However, Camacho takes on a unique approach by framing it as a leadership approach and looking at it through a theological lens. He builds the book around six key principles:<\/p>\n While professional coaching might not be available for everyone, the skills of a coach can be gleaned and nurtured into how we approach others, especially those we work alongside. At its core, coaching is about observation, deep listening, and responding with a question that allows the other person to process what they have said or are working through. Eve Poole\u2019s Leadersmithing<\/em> might have something to say about this. She lays out the essential ways a person can craft and practice leadership through four areas of meta-learning: leadership muscle memory, self-regulation, reflective judgment, and learning to learn.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n For many, it is hard to give up the impulse to fix, give advice, or take off the \u201cexpert\u201d hat, especially when you are used to people coming to you. It is especially challenging to encourage people to lean into the pain and failure they are sensing, as Camacho wrote about the gut-wrenching reality that his church plant failed.<\/p>\n For a leader to begin to approach coaching, they certainly need the skills of differentiation. Freidman wrote, \u201cThe struggle between individuality and togetherness exists in every relationship system and is a far more basic issue for compatibility in relationships than any other (social science) difference.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n In my last few leadership roles, I have tried to implement a coach approach to leadership, including incorporating coaching sessions with each of my staff members, where they drive the agenda and goals they want to cover. At the same time, I started to realize how much of my day was interrupted by staffers coming into my office to ask me a question or to give them the answer to a problem with which they were dealing. It was difficult at first, but I built in a few key questions as my first response, which included:<\/p>\n What\u2019s at the heart of Camacho\u2019s Mining for Gold<\/em> is for individuals to see the incredible potential within themselves as a child of God, capable of discovering their God-given giftedness (design), cultivating the capacity to manage what has been thrown at them, and developing trusting relationships with others to accomplish more together. As Camacho urged, \u201cTo be a Christian leader is to relate to others in a particular way. We don\u2019t use people to pursue a goal; we love people as God is working his goals in them.\u201d[5]<\/a> So, for leaders, it is time to take off the expert hat and put on the coach\u2019s hat, equipping people to discover the answers for themselves as they journey with them. For many, this requires us to go through the difficult work of being fitted for a new hat.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Tom Camacho, Mining for Gold: Developing Kingdom Leaders Through Coaching<\/em> (Nottingham: Intervarsity Press, 2019), 18.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Ibid., 12-13.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Poole, Eve,\u00a0Leadersmithing<\/em> (London: Bloomsbury Business, 2017), 12.<\/p>\n\n
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