Is there any risk with being vulnerable? (part 2)

What happens when vulnerability invades our professional life?

One instance where, as a professional, a person could feel vulnerable could be when their boundaries are crossed. For example, if their role as a coach is being questioned, that situation could trigger their sense of vulnerability. Not being acknowledged in one's role not only may trigger the feling of being vulnerable but also anger. From my perspective, what is going to make the difference in that context is how confident the person feels about the knowledge they hold and the alignment of their actions with the values they stand for. This is the more confident the person feels about what they know and how they behave, the less vulnerable that person will feel.

However, like everything in life, there is another side of the story and that is when not the coach but the coachee is the one feeling vulnerable. This would be my major concern as a coach during a coaching session: to protect and take care of the person I am coaching. I said in my previous blog that when it comes to human interaction is not the interaction itself what causes the sense of vulnerability but how the person perceives and interprets that interaction. Here is when empathy matters most. As a coach, I have to be aware of how my words and behavior may impact the other person's reality. In this sense, emotional intelligence plays in three different levels of awareness. First, the awareness of my own emotional state and actions. Second, being aware of the other person's feelings and how my behavior could impact on them. And third, I have to be aware of the environment or context where and when the conversation is taking place.