THE FRAMEWORKS WE HOLD, THE LENSES WE USE
(excerpted from “Integral Leadership Coaching: A Partner in Sustainability” by Lloyd Raines, published March 2007, Integral Leadership Review.)
Abstract: Every coach holds a particular framework when coaching, along with lenses that lay beyond our conscious awareness. For example, a coach may listen and observe primarily from a cognitive perspective—picking up on how language provides entry into the client’s interior world, thinking, assumptions, point of view, dominant stories, and insights into his or her interactions with others. Another coach may be naturally attuned to working from an emotional lens, sensing the degree to which the leader is emotionally self-aware, socially aware, and healthy in terms of self-care and social care. This emotional intelligence lens may bring significant focus to the leader’s capacity to harness social energy through emotional connections and the experiences that make those connections meaningful. Or the dominant coaching frame might be somatic, seeing the subtle and unmistakable ways that the inner world of a leader shows up in their bodies, movements, and energy. And so on for other significant frames – like gender, race, class, nationality, ethnicity, spirituality, sexual orientation, etc. We can see, in short order, how layered and inter-connected our lenses are, operating above and below our conscious awareness, shaping the ways we perceive, make sense of, draw meaning from, and engage in social life.