Coaching with Kindness

Lisa Weiss contributed today's thinking.

I have a friend who has this outlook on kindness: the kindest thing you can do is be honest. When a friend has remnants of salad stuck between her teeth, the kindest thing I can do is tell her. When my colleague’s fly has taken a trip south, the kindest thing I can do is tell him. It might not feel comfortable, but it is, without a doubt, my kindest move.

I’ve been included in conversations recently where coaches are reporting that it is not their job to give feedback to teachers. This, by the way, is a very different perspective than the district holds, but  my sense is that these coaches are navigating the uncomfortable territory of evaluating versus providing feedback. Being a coach at heart, and fully understanding that feedback is a critical component of my work in order to facilitate change, I’ve found myself sharing my own stories that highlight the fact that providing feedback is unavoidable in the life of an effective coach. As I’ve shared my own stories, a pattern emerged, a pattern that had me thinking about my friend Anne, and her outlook on kindness.

Perhaps the kindest approach to coaching is making the commitment to provide honest feedback, and to share that feedback in the kindest way possible. This is the kindest move I have for impacting students (being honest with the teacher in a way that further develops the coaching relationship while building capacity), and this is the kindest move I have for investing into the professional life of the teacher (being honest, and saying what needs to be said in a way that we can work to problem-solve together).

I have a few new literacy coaches I am working with this year, and I’ve been out and about observing them teaching their intervention courses. Just yesterday, when a new coach and I were debriefing the lesson I witnessed, I started by naming all the specific ways this coach exemplified thoughtful, intentional teaching as she supported her students through the learning. Like any conversation, she talked about her successes and identified some challenges, and as the conversation came to an end, the coach asked, “Did you see things I did wrong, or that I should do differently?”  I was, because of how she interacts with students and purposefully plans for them, quite naturally positioned to be positive and encouraging in our debrief. The conversation was natural and easy, but her question made me remember that we are new to each other. She had no way of knowing that it is not possible for me to swallow an issue if one exists; I believe the kindest thing I can do for students and for teachers is to name the issue...gently, respectfully, kindly. So I told her that. Exactly that. I’m so glad you asked me that question, because you would have no way of knowing this, but I can promise you two things. 1) I can be counted on to be honest in my feedback, and 2) I can be counted on to provide that feedback as kindly as possible. It was easy to share that because that is who and how I am; I’m not going to have to work very hard to keep that promise. 

However, blatantly stating this made me wonder if sharing this--a philosophy of coaching with kindness--at the beginning of a coaching cycle would set teachers up to expect honest feedback, and set coaches up for providing the feedback that needs to be given. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. What outcomes could we expect if we, as coaches, named the fact that it is our responsibility to provide honest and kind feedback, so that it was an expectation in every coaching partnership? It puts the coach in an accountability position to the teacher to provide that feedback, and to do it with kindness. It puts the teacher in a space to know that feedback will be given, and given with integrity and kindness...seems like a great way to begin and foster a professional relationship!

What do you think?