Confidence and Coaching: The growth of my confidence as a coach and the neuroscience behind that. Part 2
In Part 1 I examined the underlying mechanisms that lead to the external manifestation of confidence in someone, as seen by others AND the internal realisation that I have confidence in what I am doing. In Part 2 I will build on Part 1 and examine how we might use the knowledge from Part 1 to help us become better coaches.
Emotions influences on our daily feelings of confidence-emotions
Most of us have experienced different emotions. But what is an ‘emotion’? The field of research into emotions is broad, with conflicting ideas [ref 16] about their origins. Generally, it appears to be accepted that emotional states are strongly linked with physiological states, which then may then become more consciously known, as a ‘feeling’. We may, or may not be aware of a particular body state, and we also may not be aware enough of the emotion that goes with it to name it, but the state and the emotion are there nonetheless.
Different emotional and bodily states are often associated with feelings of uncertainty.
Fleming describes a series of studies [ref 17] that show that ‘the current state of our bodies also exerts a powerful influence on how confident we feel about our performance.’ He suggests that the brain takes information from a range of sources, pools them and creates a ‘global picture of how confident it is in its model of the world’. So whether I am judging if that movement in the bushes is a predator or just the wind, or judging whether my memory of an event is accurate, I am using similar neural machinery, even though the sources of input data in each of these is different.
Further, there is experimental evidence to suggest that our wider, longer-term, feelings of confidence (our self-esteem and self-worth, for example) are linked to our shorter-term feeling of confidence; these can be pushed up or down by environmental events. For example, error-detection is improved when experimental subjects read sentences containing words related to intelligence, such as ‘brightest’. They are ‘primed to feel clever’ [ref 18]. You could say that, at that moment, they were feeling confident about their task, regardless of how they were feeling about their life. For example, you may feel that your career is on-track, confidant that it is going where you want it to go, but still feel nervous about a forthcoming important event where you will be playing a pivotal role that is weeks, days or even minutes away, especially if it is something you have never done before.
There has been much written about pushing our ‘comfort zone’. For example, “Ego- get over yourself and lead” by Mary Gregory (ref 19) I found to be particularly good. The idea is that pushing your own personal comfort zone by small increments will lead to its long-term expansion, but pushing it too far and failing, will lead to BOTH confidence AND your comfort zone shrinking. This is an idea I fully agree with, having ‘pushed the boundary’ on several occasions during my career. I suggest that the incremental pushing at the boundary by doing new things that are difficult but not impossible, is the ‘short-term’ confidence in our ability to do a task that leads eventually to the development of our long-term confidence in our self-worth and self-esteem; a very practical application of this science.
Influences on the development of confidence
For a fuller description of human metacognition, read my blog “metacognition-thinking-about-thinking-in-the-context-of-my-coaching-practice” parts 1 and 2 (see ref 2 for links). But very simply, through the two building blocks of ‘sensitivity to error’ and ‘self-monitoring’, humans have the ability to think about their thinking, which forms a starting point for understanding fully-fledged self-awareness. Human metacognition has both genetic and cultural roots. The old nature vs nurture argument has long since been resolved, since BOTH a person’s genetics AND the culture they grow up create their metacognition [ref 20]. Cultural influences include parents and education, and also societal beliefs and views.
Fleming describes studies comparing the ability to know other people’s feelings (‘mind-reading’) across cultures. Samoans consider it impolite to talk about how they are feeling or what they are thinking. Their children pass mind-reading tests much later than Western children More persuasive evidence that mind-reading is culturally acquired comes from an investigation of deaf users of Nicaraguan Sign Language. When that language was new, with only rudimentary words for mental states, users at that time had a fairly poor understanding of false beliefs. Ten years later, when the language had lots of ways to talk about the mind, people who learned it then became more adept at mind-reading [ref 21].
It takes a lot of time to develop self-awareness. In a study of teenagers aged 11 to 17, the highest level of self-awareness was found around 17 years of age This happens as the teenage brain is busy changing its structure, pruning the number of connections between brain cells, losing connections that are no longer needed. Improvements in metacognition in childhood are strongest in individuals who show more pronounced structural changes in parts of the frontal lobe, particularly that part that is the nexus for both metacognition and mind-reading, and it may be “…that acquiring fully-fledged self-awareness is a long, arduous process, perhaps one that requires learning new tools for thinking.” [ref 22]. Given that coaching is one form of adult education whose success lies in the coach’s ability to get their client to look at themselves in a different way, this last statement rings true for me.
Fleming also describes how our self-awareness can be degraded, and even lost. This depends on our ability to judge whether a memory is a true memory or one constructed from things we have been told. If that self-awareness is lost, it can lead, in some cases, to being unable to distinguish reality from imagination, which can occur with some diseases such as dementia. Or it may happen when we are repeatedly told something which we then integrate into a memory [ref 23].
What this looks like in the workplace as a manager and coach: the value of effective feedback
Our self-awareness of our abilities, and thus our short-term confidence, can be improved by effective feedback. I was fortunate to be able to speak to Dr Fleming recently] as part of a book club [ref 24]. In discussing his book, the subject of whether our self-awareness could be improved by teaching arose. Dr Fleming told us that the field is still grappling with how that might be achieved. One of the club members, an experienced coach themself, thought that better feedback was needed to achieve that.
The next day I mentioned this in a conversation with some of the internal coaches in my workplace. One mentioned that they had been the recipient of a targeted feedback programme when they first became a manager. They generously gave me their time later to describe this in detail.
The process started with a self-assessment of their management and leadership skills, and a survey plus narrative feedback of those skills from four groups; their direct reports, peers, immediate line manager and the stakeholders of the work they and their team were doing.
The survey scored the skills from 1-5.
The results from each group were averaged and anonymised and reported, with a comparison to the self-assessment.
My colleague reported that they had found this very useful, and still do. They had learned how they were regarded by the people in the four groups, some of which came as a complete surprise. They recognised their skills better than they had before. They were more confident as a result, because they “recognised their strengths, and did not concentrate on their weaknesses”. This struck me as exactly the kind of thing Dr Fleming and his fellow workers in the field were striving to find. Of course, such targeted feedback is not easy to organise. But my sample of one suggests that this area might be a fruitful one for future research.
What does self-awareness do for a coach’s confidence?
To summarise, a person’s self-awareness is not set in stone. It develops over time, is subject to changes on a daily basis which can feed upon themselves. It can also deteriorate. Levels of self-awareness do also vary from person to person. Fleming concludes that “Metacognition is not fixed…Our own more subtle cases of metacognitive failure can also be shaped and improved.” [ref 25] When drafting this, Yvonne, who runs ‘the good coach’, asked what the highest level of adult self-awareness was. I don’t know the answer. Maybe the highest level, if such a thing exists, is something akin to the Buddhist Nirvana, complete loss of self. I think that the more self-aware we are, the more wisdom will be attributed to us. At the very least, our self-awareness can be used as a barometer to gauge our confidence and allow us to calibrate it with greater accuracy. This will then be observed by our clients and instil confidence in them that coaching with us will have a successful outcome for them (but more on that in part 3).
An example would be Sam Horn’s blog on LinkedIn, ‘What can I do if I’m running out of patience?’ What can I do when someone is making me angry? Her answer is to look at things from the other person’s point of view and ask ‘how would I feel if I were in their shoes?’ Sam is adamant that we can learn to stop before we react, ask ourselves that question, then respond with empathy and compassion to make things better, not worse. [ref 27]. I’ve still got a way to go!
The journey, for me, is a life-long one, probably requiring active Deliberative Practice [ref 26], particularly in my practice as a coach as I better understand myself in what I do when I coach my clients.
I think this idea has important repercussions for coaching; maybe nothing we did not already know empirically, but providing us with a theory that can explain our observations.
In the next part of this series, I delve into the accuracy of our self-awareness when we account for our daily feelings of short-term and long-term confidence through metacognition.
Andrew Parrock (MSc, CMgr, MCMI) has, since graduating in 1980, been a teacher, a tax specialist and a manager. He spent 10 years as a volunteer mentor with undergraduate students at UCL and, later, Brunel University as part of the National Mentoring Consortium. He discovered coaching late in his career and has now become an accredited coach at Practitioner Level with the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC).
References
“Know Thyself: the new science of self-awareness” by Stephen M. Fleming. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Know-Thyself-New-Science-Self-Awareness-ebook/dp/B08QRMXN2H/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1REO2TFDTNCFD&keywords=know+thyself+stephen+fleming&qid=1669826334&sprefix=stephen+fleming%2Caps%2C73&sr=8-1
https://the-goodcoach.com/tgcblog/2022/2/28/metacognition-thinking-about-thinking-in-the-context-of-my-coaching-practice-part-1-by-andrew-parrock and https://the-goodcoach.com/tgcblog/2022/2/28/metacognition-thinking-about-thinking-in-the-context-of-my-coaching-practice-part2-by-andrew-parrock
Know Thyself op cit p225 note14.
Andrew Parrock -op cit
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns#:~:text=Rumsfeld%20stated%3A,things%20we%20do%20not%20know.- accessed 11th August 2022
‘Know Thyself’ op cit page 78
Know Thyself’ op cit page 79
Daniel Kahneman; ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ 2011
Know Thyself’ op cit p85-86
BBC 1, 21st June 2022
The Quote Investigator: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/02/03/you-can/ accessed 17th August 2022
Lynne Hindmarch ‘Self-Efficacy and coaching’: The Good Coach website, accessed 17th August 2022. https://the-goodcoach.com/tgcblog/2017/1/31/self-efficacy-and-coaching
Know Thyself’ op cit pp126-128
Know Thyself’ op cit pp 148-149
Amy Brann online course: ‘Neuroscience for coaches’; taken in 2020. Module 2: ‘The Emotional and Social Brain’
Know Thyself’ op cit p 87
ref BB: Know Thyself’ op cit p 89
‘Ego- get over yourself and lead’ by Mary Gregory. Many references to comfort zones, particularly chapter 4 ‘taking ourselves on’, which also looks at ‘how becoming more conscious is a choice’.
‘Know Thyself’ op cit p90
Know Thyself’ op cit pp 90-91
Know Thyself’ op cit pp 92-93
‘Know Thyself’ op cit pp 94 and 95
CSNet book club 4th October 2022- https://csnetbookclub.org/
‘Know Thyself’ op cit p100
‘Deliberate Practice and Acquisition of expert Performance: A general Overview’ by K Anders Ericsson, PhD. Academic Emergency Medicine 2008; 15: 988-994 (ISSN 1069-6563, PII ISSN 1069-6563583)
Sam Horn’s blog “What can I do if I’m running out of patience?” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-can-i-do-im-running-out-patience-sam-horn/?trackingId=