Raising awareness of disruptive behaviours in relationships – Part 3. How can a coach help a client address behaviours and take responsibility for their part in creating an unhealthy relationship dynamic?
This issue: defensiveness
Nicole Berg
In the last two issues, we introduced two of four specific behaviours that are damaging to relationships. Here we focus on another – defensiveness – in a professional context. It sets out how a coach can help a client address behaviours and take responsibility for their part in creating an unhealthy relationship dynamic.
I was invited into a large organisation to coach Esther*, a first-time manager in her mid-40s. As often happens, Esther had been excelling in her former role and was promoted on this basis, and on her potential as good management material. Esther was in some ways apprehensive of this challenge, but ready to embrace it.
One particular area for growth that was highlighted by Esther and her line manager was the need to step back from daily operational tasks and to take a more strategic and visionary focus on behalf of her old team.
Esther viewed this as a challenging imperative: she knew intimately the importance of the ‘day-to-day’, and was strong in delivering in this area; she also felt much less confident in performing the tasks of her new role. Yet theoretically she knew, and her line manager stressed, the importance of higher-level thinking.
Making excuses
In my first meeting with Esther and her line manager Mark*, I noted how they interacted with one another. There was clearly mutual respect, as well as a sense that Esther was keen to develop in her role with Mark’s mentorship, which Mark was happy to give.
However, I detected from Esther’s side a degree of defensiveness, which would hold her back in achieving her goal, and had an impact on how she interacted with her line manager in the particular area of strategic thinking, which could permeate throughout their relationship and her interactions if left unchecked.
Defensiveness is one of Dr John Gottman’s ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’, a term that alludes to the severity of impact of four behaviours in relationships.
Gottman states that no relationship, personal or professional, can withstand these behaviours on an ongoing basis. (The others are: criticism, contempt and stonewalling.) Defensiveness is described as seeing oneself as the victim, while warding off a perceived (key word) attack.
This may look like:
- Making excuses For example, external circumstances forced one to act in a certain way: ‘It’s not my fault…’; ‘I didn’t…’
- Cross-complaining Meeting the other’s complaint or criticism with a complaint of one’s own, without acknowledging what the other said
- Disagreeing and then cross-complaining ‘That’s not true, you’re the one who …’; ‘I did this because you did that…’
- Yes-butting Starting off agreeing, but ending up disagreeing
Esther was wise not to display many of these behaviours to her line manager. However, she was ‘making excuses’ in advance of her focused attempts at strategic thinking.
Also, in addition to this specific behaviour, she took an unconscious posture toward victimisation. For instance, when she spoke about changing her focus from operations to visioning, her usual refrain was, ‘I just haven’t done it before’ (aka, the ‘excuse’), while her voice took on almost the quality of helplessness, or perhaps even a slight whine and her eyes got wide and child-like as she slightly lowered her chin and looked up at the listener.
Throughout our coaching programme, a main theme was confidence building. By zeroing in on this foundational aspect, challenges with visioning and other elements of becoming a manager were ameliorated.
In our final review session,
Esther’s posture and voice rang with confidence, she looked me square in the eye and her tone was one of decisiveness and taking charge, rather than abdicating responsibility and assuming a role as a victim of circumstance. She was not a new manager, she was a new woman.
Vitamin ‘D’
While we didn’t have scope to focus on Esther’s relationship with her line manager, it turns out that this was indirectly improved by Esther’s efforts to take responsibility for her part in the situation or conflict. According to Gottman, taking personal responsibility is the antidote to defensiveness.
Tony Phillips, leadership coach and coach trainer, explains why this works.
“Somebody asked me a few years ago whether there was a common theme across my coaching clients on why they came to coaching. After thinking for a minute or two I realised that while hardly any of my clients come to me for coaching to work on their relationships, it is pretty much guaranteed that once we’ve peeled away their surface goals and challenges, the key challenges they have impact their relationships, whether that be with their line manager, peers or subordinates or a combination of all of them.
“In my experience, while defensiveness definitely has a negative impact on relationships, the best way to improve relationships is to explore what’s causing defensiveness.”
This means a client must take responsibility for their part in creating a situation and relationship dynamic, as per Gottman’s remedy.
For instance, Tony suggests exploring whether a client feels exposed; perhaps they’re not sure that their line manager will support them sufficiently, or they’re concerned that their new reports won’t be able to do the job as well as they did? And what’s behind this feeling? Is it lack of confidence, as in Esther’s case? Is it lack of trust in others? In Tony’s experience, he states, a lack of trust in others usually comes down to a lack of trust in oneself.
To start breaking down defences, Tony suggests an exercise in which a client visualises the future when they’re successful, what it looks, sounds and feels like and explores which of their existing strengths they’ve used to achieve it.
Esther tapped into her existing strengths to combat her lack of confidence, and took responsibility for her circumstances by learning a new skill set. If the relationship with her line manager had been impacted by the experience, she could take additional responsibility to own up to her part in the matter and apologise, thereby repairing the relationship.
Judging from Esther’s feedback, as well as her line manager’s and director’s, Esther nipped in the bud any potential conflict by tackling her challenges head on. The best defence, as they say, is a good offence.
*Names have been changed
- J Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Orion, 2007
- Next issue: The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, Part 4 – Stonewalling