What Isn’t Coachable?
Can someone with low self-awareness become highly self-aware with the right coaching?
How about judgment? Can a team member with poor judgment learn to make consistently good predictions and decisions with the right counsel?
Exactly what is coachable, and what is uncoachable? While there are no definitive answers to these questions, the consensus among leadership experts is that most skills, traits, and aptitudes are coachable. However, there is a short list of competencies and qualities that are not.
What talents are on that list? This is hotly debated largely because, over long periods of time, people can make small strides in even the hardest-to-change skills.
But that doesn’t mean it is a good use of time for leaders to coach others while hoping for change regarding a quality that is unlikely, if not impossible, to improve.
Here's what we all agree on. Good leaders coach others to success. They work hard to advance the skills and elevate the thinking of team members with the goal of helping them reach their true potential.
Through conversations, assignments, feedback, practice drills, skill assessments, and role-playing, leaders facilitate learning and enhance the critical competencies of those on the team.
The best coaches seek to amplify existing strengths as well as address glaring weaknesses. In the hands of a great leader and coach, team members can make big strides in their personal growth and development.
Great leaders recognize the transformative power of coaching while also accepting that some skills and traits are uncoachable. The list of uncoachable skills is small. But these areas that are nearly impossible to change, at least through coaching, are often critical to success.
Accepting what can and can’t be changed in people through the coaching process is critical for all leaders to grasp. The failure to do so equates to an enormous waste of time and energy and almost always results in frustration for both parties.
While leaders can provide support and guidance to develop various aspects of these skills and traits, the ability to make big gains is severely limited. The best leaders focus their attention on other areas and try not to run a river that can’t be navigated.
Those with extensive coaching experience offer the following traits and skills as largely uncoachable: Self-awareness, Intrinsic Motivation, Creativity, Resilience, Judgment, and Performance Anxiety.
Over the life course, people do make small gains and advancements in these areas, but not typically as a direct result of coaching.
Every leader must decide for themselves what skills and traits they believe are uncoachable and invest their time accordingly. The shortlist above is neither exhaustive nor conclusive. The key is for leaders to ponder the question of what talents are uncoachable before they attempt to lead others to success.
Spending more time on coachable qualities will likely promote more team member growth and development while accepting what can’t be markedly changed will result in less disappointment and friction.
What is on your list of uncoachable qualities? Decide before you invest the time to push an immovable rock uphill in a storm.
I woke up to this today, and it totally juiced me up! As a coach and HR leader, I’ve often contemplated the differences between what is coachable versus what is teachable, but I actually believe they’re closely related.
When working with prospective clients, I make a concerted effort to determine whether they’re the right fit. Translation: are they genuinely ready and self-aware enough to see that coaching could benefit them? I completely agree that coaching self-awareness is a tough endeavor and is likely better suited to CBT.
On intrinsic motivation, I disagree a bit—while it’s challenging, I think it can be coached. It doesn't necessarily need a work environment that fosters it, like a culture of autonomy. Intrinsic motivation can be nurtured through effective mindset framing.
Creativity, on the other hand, requires a different approach. It can be ‘unlocked’ through unconventional means, like getting clients to embrace activities they initially dismiss as ‘weird’ or soft. For me, yoga did just that. Its mental mapping and focus helped me lower barriers and become more open to trying new things.
Resilience has become a buzzword, often misunderstood. Defined as the capacity to bounce back from difficulties, it’s a great quality in moderation. But I’ve seen it morph into an unreasonable expectation that employees should constantly demonstrate it, simply because the business environment is chaotic. Resilience shouldn’t be a daily operating principle; it should be called upon only when truly needed.
Ultimately, I believe all of these can be coached—if both the coach and the client are fully committed to growth. The real barriers to being 'uncoachable'? Grandiose narcissism and low attachment anxiety, both bordering on psychopathy, which coaching simply can’t tackle. Look those up if you’re curious.
That's an interesting list! Here's my take on how these might improve in an individual (outside of coaching):
Self-awareness -> therapy or life lessons
Intrinsic Motivation -> therapy or life lessons
Creativity -> going back to their inner child's form of play (perhaps w/ the help of therapy)
Resilience -> life lessons
Judgment -> life lessons and mentorship
Performance Anxiety -> practice, practice, practice