Personality and perceptions of coaching effectiveness

I received an email this morning from a psychology student doing research for her final dissertation on whether there is a link between personality and perceived effectiveness of coaching. It sparked a few thoughts!

One immediate connection was with a conversation I had with another coach a few weeks ago about how different types of coaching intervention are seen differently by different personalities. On a programme, I had been demonstrating (and getting participants to experiment with) two chair / empty chair work as a means of really understanding what the other is feeling, rather than simply trying to work out what they are thinking. I was sharing that I found it incredibly useful. My colleague said: "And that's because you're a T. For me, as an F, it isn't so wonderful - I do this instinctively, so the new insight it gives me is not so dramatic." This made sense, and I then thought about who other interventions appeal to most. Not surprisingly, many of my favourite interventions are those which allow high IQ people to unblock their EQ. Even the politics models I use are most loved by the (Centaur) types who don't do politics well.

The other immediate thought was that your type has a big impact on how effective you would judge anything to be! Some people (and you can link to various personality models) will always focus on the shortfall to perfection - so effectiveness is always limited. Others will focus on the positive impacts and future possibilities of positive impacts - so will potentially always overstate effectiveness. And I realise as I read the last sentence again, it's pretty easy to tell which type I am!